Charles Xavier and the Holy Grail
by Matt Briddell
Summary: And now for something completely different. Magneto sends the X-Men to a strange world that bears a strange resemblance to a certain British movie. Their powers are useless, and Scott and Kurt are the only ones that seem to have any idea what’s going on
1. Prologue

X-Claimer: I do not own any of the characters normally associated with X- Men Evolution or Monty Python. If you are a representative of either of those organizations, please keep in mind that this is for fun, not profit. Please don't sue!!! (  
  
Prologue:  
  
Scott gasped for air as he paused on the top step of Magneto's lofty fortress tower. He and the X-Men had just finished running up about 20,000 steps, and were now ready to take on the evil mutant once and for all.  
  
"Ok, this is it!" Scott said. "This is what we trained for! Is everybody ready?"  
  
"Yeah!" yelled the motivated X-Men.  
  
"Alright!" said Scott. "Now, just keep in mind, some of us might not come back alive. Hey! Where are you all going?" he shouted as several of his teammates tried to sneak back down the staircase.  
  
"Uh, I just remembered," said Kurt nervously. "Big chemistry test tomorrow!"  
  
"Yeah, and, like, some of us have to get our beauty rest, ya know?" Kitty chided.  
  
"Get back here!" shouted Scott. "You can't leave now! If you do, you'll never find out what Magneto really looks like under his helmet!"  
  
"Oh, fine," grumbled the mutants. "But only because some of us have been waiting for six years to find out,"  
  
"That's more like it," said Scott, and blasted open the door to Magneto's chamber.  
  
X  
  
The X-Men dashed in to find Magneto crouched over a computer console. He looked up and laughed at them.  
  
"Ha ha! You're too late, X-Men!" he said with a sinister laugh. "In just a few moments, I will activate my deadly Diabolic Machine and turn the brains of every human being on this planet to mush! Nobody can stop me!"  
  
"Uh, is this gonna take a while?" Evan asked Magneto. "Some of us have to go to school tomorrow,"  
  
"Silence!" shouted Magneto. "You almost made me lose my place and have to start over!"  
  
"We wouldn't want that to happen, now would we?" Rogue muttered sarcastically.  
  
Magneto resumed his grandiose speech, droning on and on about he was going to rule the world.  
  
X  
  
Jean yawned. "Is he gonna be done anytime soon?" she asked Scott.  
  
"I guess that's what we get when the writers cast a British theatre star as the bad guy," Scott said. "Hey, Kitty, think you could speed things up a bit?" he asked Kitty, tipping his head in the direction of Magneto's Diabolic Machine \  
  
"Like, I thought you'd never ask!" Kitty said, and discreetly walked over to the Diabolic Machine . While Magneto was distracted, she phased into it and shorted it out. She walked back out of the machine and gave Scott a thumbs-up.  
  
Wolverine interrupted Magneto. "Hey, sorry to cut your megalomaniac rant short, bub, but we just foiled your plans yet again,"  
  
"What?" asked Magneto, and looked over at his Diabolic Machine and saw Kitty leaning up against it. She smiled at Magneto and waved her hand at him as the machine began to spew smoke and sparks.  
  
"No!" shouted Magneto. "Blast! Foiled again by my theatrical instincts for the melodramatic!"  
  
"Um, right, whatever," said Scott. "Well, it was nice laying the smack down on you yet again, but we really must be going, so if you'll excuse us,"  
  
"Not so fast!" Magneto shouted. "Like any good villain, I always have a backup plan!" He leaned over and pulled an immensely large lever on the side of the Diabolic Machine , and a dark blue spinning vortex began to appear above the X-Men.  
  
"Now I shall use my Evil Chaos Inducer © to send you all to a dimension of limitless suffering! So long, fools!" Magneto shouted.  
  
"Oh man!" said Scott. "I can't believe we didn't see that immensely large lever!"  
  
"Begone!" Magneto shouted, and the vortex swallowed the X-Men, and then vanished.  
  
"Ha ha!" laughed Magneto and walked over to his computer. "And now to watch the fun,"  
  
Turning on his screen, he saw that his Evil Chaos Inducer © had opened up two similar vortices. One was centered on the Xavier Institute, and the other on the Bayville Boarding House.  
  
He sat down at his computer and opened up a small cupboard. Inside there was a large bowl of popcorn. "Let's see how those fools like things in the Python Dimension," Magneto chuckled, picking up the popcorn bowl and settling in to watch the fun.  
  
X  
  
At the Xavier Institute, the young mutants were outside, playing basketball. Ray passed the ball to Bobby, but as Bobby drove into the lane on Amara, the sky overhead grew very dark. They all looked up to see a giant swirling vortex floating above them.  
  
"Run away!" shouted Bobby, but the vortex quickly engulfed them all and vanished, leaving only the basketball bouncing on the pavement.  
  
Over at the Boarding House, a similar situation was unfolding. Wanda, Lance and Toad had been sucked into the vortex almost instantly, leaving Pietro and Fred trying to escape its pull. Pietro was running as fast as he could but was losing ground.  
  
"Freddy! Help me, you big lug!" he shouted desperately, but before Fred could help him, the vortex overwhelmed Pietro and he vanished inside of it.  
  
Meanwhile, Fred stood in the center of the house's living room, not moving. The vortex was straining to draw him in, but Fred just stood there, completely unaffected by it.  
  
"Figures," he said. "Everybody else gets to go on a trip and I'm stuck here," he muttered. "Well not this time!" With that, Fred jumped into the spinning maelstrom and vanished.  
  
The vortex breathed an audible sigh of relief as it swallowed Fred and closed up on itself, leaving the house empty.  
  
X 


	2. Maybe the swallows should stick to FedEx

The X-Men screamed as they fell through the chaos between dimensions. Scott tried to hold onto Jean, but he lost his grip on her and saw her and the rest of the X-Men drift away into the ether. A few seconds later, he landed on hard ground with a heavy thud.  
  
"Uh!" he exclaimed at the impact. He sat up slowly, trying to get his bearings. He was in a large hilly field, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It was day, but it was very foggy and Scott could not see very far.  
  
"Ugh. Where am I? Where's everybody else?" Scott wondered aloud. He looked down and saw that his uniform had vanished. Instead, he was wearing a white tunic and chain mail armor, and had some kind of strange metal band on his head.  
  
Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see a young man standing behind him, carrying a very large knapsack on his back.  
  
"Are you alright, sire?" the man asked in a British accent.  
  
"Um, yeah," said Scott as he stood up. "Hey, wait a minute, what'd you just call me?"  
  
"I called you sire, my liege," said the man.  
  
"Liege? What's going on here?" Scott asked the man. "Where did everybody else go? What happened to my uniform? What's this thing on my head?"  
  
"That, that's your crown, sire," said the young man, obviously confused. "Are you sure you're alright? That wizard must have given you an awful blow,"  
  
"What wizard?" asked Scott. "I don't even know where I am! The last thing I knew I was fighting Magneto, and now I wind up here and I'm wearing this ridiculous costume! And I don't even know who you,"  
  
Scott took a closer look at the young man's face as he was talking. Despite the accented voice, and the grime and dirt covering his face, Scott thought the youth looked very familiar. "Wait. Bobby?" he asked.  
  
"No, sire, I'm your servant Patsy! Don't you even remember me?" said the young man. "Oh, that bloody wizard! I knew we shouldn't have trusted that bloke Merlin, sire! Always had a sneaky look to him if you ask me,"  
  
"Hang on, did you just say Merlin?" asked Scott.  
  
"Yes, my lord," said Patsy. "Rotten scoundrel he is. I'll skin him alive if I ever see him again,"  
  
Scott took a guess. "Am I, King Arthur?"  
  
"Bless you, sire, you're remembering!" Patsy cried.  
  
"I don't remember everything, Bob, er, Patsy," Scott said. "I don't know where or even when it is,"  
  
"You're in England, sire, and it's the year 73 squared AD,"  
  
"73 squared?" asked Scott. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Well, that's the way we write it anyway, sire," Patsy exclaimed. "The last number always gets wrote out real tiny-like, so we call it 73 squared,"  
  
"Right," Scott said skeptically. "Look, I was with some people. Friends of mine. Have you seen them anywhere?"  
  
"Not lately sire, but who knows what sort of tricks that blasted wizard might have pulled. He coulda sent then halfway around the world for all I know," Patsy said.  
  
"Look, I really need to find them," said Scott. "Do you have any idea where they could be?"  
  
Patsy shrugged his shoulders. "None whatsoever, milord, but I think there's a castle a few miles from here. Maybe we should look there,"  
  
"Alright," said Scott. "If anything else, maybe they can give us food and shelter for the night. Do we have any horses?"  
  
"Of course we do, sire, the finest horses in England!" Patsy said. He reached in his knapsack and pulled out two coconut shells.  
  
"Those are the horses?" Scott asked incredulously.  
  
"Well, sire, we are working on a rather low budget," said Patsy. "I'm afraid these were the best we could afford,"  
  
"Alright," Scott sighed. "Let's get going,"  
  
With that, he turned and began to walk towards the castle. Patsy walked along behind him, banging the coconut shells together.  
  
X  
  
About an hour later, they arrived at the castle. As they approached, a voice rang out.  
  
"Halt! Who goes there?" it asked.  
  
Scott looked up to see a guard patrolling the tower. He couldn't make out his face but he thought he recognized Ray's voice.  
  
"Ray? Is that you?" Scott asked. "How'd you get here?"  
  
"There's no Ray up here!" replied the voice. "Now identify yourself, or I'll sick the hounds on you!"  
  
Scott scratched his head. What was going on here, anyway? Since Bobby, or Patsy as he was calling himself, thought he was King Arthur, Scott decided to play the part and took up a royal air.  
  
"I am Arthur, King of Camelot!" Scott called up to the guard. Then for flair, he added, "son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, sovereign of all England!"  
  
"Pull, the other one!" the guard called back.  
  
Scott looked up at the guard questioningly, not understanding what he had said, but realized that he was asking about Patsy.  
  
"Uh, I am!" he said. "And this is my trusted servant, er, Patsy! We have ridden the length and breadth of the land in search of our fellow knights. I must speak with your lord and master,"  
  
"What, ridden on a horse?"  
  
"Yes!"  
  
"You're using coconuts!" said the guard, accusingly.  
  
"What?" Scott asked.  
  
"You've got two empty halves of coconuts and you're banging them together!" replied the guard, pointing at the coconuts in Patsy's hands.  
  
"So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercea, through,"  
  
"Where'd you get the coconuts?" the guard interrupted.  
  
"Um, we found them!" said Scott, honestly not knowing where Patsy had found the coconuts, anyways.  
  
"Found them? In Mercea? Coconuts are tropical!" said the guard.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Well this is a temperate zone!" said the guard, as if it the climate were common knowledge.  
  
Scott was at a loss for words. He said the first thing that came to his head. "The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?" Ok, that made no sense at all, he thought immediately afterward.  
  
"Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?" asked the guard.  
  
"Not at all!" Scott said. "It could be carried!"  
  
"What? A swallow carrying a coconut?"  
  
Scott hoped this wouldn't go on too much longer. His neck was beginning to get sore from looking up. "It could grip it by the husk," he said, a little less sure, since he had never really thought about how a swallow might carry a coconut in the first place.  
  
"It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut," said the guard.  
  
Scott was getting frustrated. "Look, it doesn't matter!" he shouted. "Can we please see your lord and master?"  
  
The guard ignored Scott and continued on. "Listen. In order to maintain air- speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?  
  
Up on the tower, a second guard walked up and joined the first. "Who's down there?" he asked.  
  
"Some loony what thinks a swallow could carry a coconut up this way," replied the first guard,"  
  
"Well, it could be carried by an African swallow," the guard suggested  
  
Scott heard the second guard and thought he sounded exactly like Roberto. "Hey, Roberto, what's going on up there?" he shouted.  
  
The guards ignored Scott and instead continued to banter on about swallows and coconuts.  
  
"Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow. That's my point,"  
  
"Oh, yeah, I agree with that," "But then of course, African swallows are non-migratory, so they couldn't bring a coconut back anyway,"  
  
"Oh, yeah,"  
  
Scott rolled his eyes. I've had enough of this, he thought. He gestured to Patsy, and they began skipping across the countryside, leaving the two guards carrying on their conversation. A few moments later, they vanished into thin air, leaving the plain to the howling wind.  
  
X 


	3. What part of 'I'm not dead' don't you un...

Scott and Patsy rode across the countryside for two days, and finally came to the outskirts of a small town. The town had the look of a graveyard to it. As Scott and Patsy made their way through the small village, they saw for themselves just how much of a dump it was. The small hovels were shoddily patched and several were crumbling. Peasants were wallowing in the muddy, filthy streets, and a foul stench hung on the air.  
  
"What is this wretched place?" asked Scott.  
  
"Some peasant village or another, sire. I don't recall the name," said Patsy. The more the young man talked, the more Scott grew unnerved at his resemblance to Bobby, although Patsy had constantly denying knowing who Bobby even was.  
  
Patsy wrinkled his nose as he sniffed the air. "There's a pestilence upon this place for sure, my liege," he said. "We shouldn't stay here too much longer,"  
  
"You're right," Scott said as he dodged a pile of filth in the street. "Wherever my friends are, they aren't here," Patsy nodded, and they slogged on through the squalid streets.  
  
Meanwhile, on the other side of the town, a tall man with shaggy hair was pulling a cart loaded with several dead bodies on it. He was known as the cart-master, and had the unique job of removing the victims of the plague from the small village.  
  
"Bring out your dead!" he called loudly as he patrolled the streets. His assistant, a tiny girl with a small nose and pigtails, walked beside him. She carried a pot with her, which she hit with a stick to accompany the man's chants.  
  
"Bring out your dead!" Whack! "Bring out your dead!" Whack! "Bring out your dead!" Whack!  
  
"Wait! Wait!" called a man as the cart passed by his house. He ran out of his house, carrying a body over his shoulder.  
  
"Here's one for you," he said as he caught up to the cart-master.  
  
"Ninepence," the cart-master insisted.  
  
The man fumbled in his pockets for the money, when suddenly the dead body over his shoulders began to stir.  
  
"Uhh, where am I?" asked the former corpse. He brushed his long hair away from his scruffy face and looked at the corpses stacked in the cart.  
  
"Hey, hang on a minute, bub! I'm not dead!" Logan said as his healing powers began to kick in.  
  
"What was that?" asked the cart-master.  
  
"Nothing, nothing at all. Here's your ninepence," said the customer as he found the right amount of money.  
  
"Are you deaf? I said I'm not dead!" Logan insisted again.  
  
"Here, he says he's not dead!" said the cart-master.  
  
"Yes he is," insisted the customer loudly.  
  
"I'm not!" said Logan just as loudly.  
  
"He isn't?" asked the cart-master.  
  
"Well, he will be soon, he's very ill,"  
  
"No, really, I'm getting better!"  
  
"No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment," said the customer as he looked back over at Logan over his shoulder.  
  
"I can't take him like that! It's against regulations," said the cart- master.  
  
"I don't want to go on that thing!" Logan said.  
  
"Oh, don't be such a baby!" snapped the customer.  
  
"I can't take him," said the cart-master.  
  
"Really! I feel fine!" said Logan.  
  
"Well, do us a favor, will you?" the customer asked the cart-master.  
  
"I can't," the cart-master replied.  
  
"Well, can you hang around a couple minutes? He won't be long," said the customer.  
  
"No, I've got to go by the Robinsons, they've lost nine today," the cart- master explained.  
  
"Well, when's your next round?" asked the customer.  
  
"Thursday," said the cart-master.  
  
Logan began to feel desperate. "Watch, I'll just go for a walk," he said.  
  
"You're not fooling anyone, you know?" the customer told him, then turned back to the cart-master. "Look, isn't there anything you can do?" he asked.  
  
"I feel happy! I feel happy!" Logan began to sing, getting delirious.  
  
The cart-master nodded to the little girl, and she smacked Logan on the head with her pot. Logan's eyes rolled back into his head as the blow knocked him out.  
  
"Ah, thanks very much," said the customer as he dropped Logan onto the cart.  
  
"Not at all," said the cart-master. "See you on Thursday, then?"  
  
"Right," said the customer.  
  
Just then, Scott hopped by the men. Patsy followed closely behind him, smacking the coconuts together. In his haste, Scott didn't notice Logan lying facedown in the cart, the cart-master's slight resemblance to Sam, or the small girl that looked very much like Rahne.  
  
"Who's that then?" asked the customer.  
  
"I dunno," replied the cart-master. "Must be a king,"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"He hasn't got slime all over him," replied the cart-master, and then picked up his cart and resumed his rounds.  
  
"Bring out your dead!" Whack! "Bring out your dead!" Whack! "Bring out your dead!" Whack! "Bring out your." Whish!  
  
Logan, the cart-master and the girl all vanished as the vortex reappeared and sucked them up, leaving the cart full of dead bodies in the streets.  
  
X 


	4. Scott gets a civics lesson

Scott and Patsy traveled on past the village and continued to search the countryside for the rest of the X-Men. So far, their search had proven futile and Scott was beginning to lose hope. For all he knew, Jean and the others could be anywhere, even Bethlehem for all he knew. Or maybe they weren't even on this planet.  
  
As he approached a castle on top of a hill, Scott saw what he thought was a woman carrying a sack over her shoulder and put his troubled thoughts aside. Maybe this woman would be able to help him.  
  
"Old woman!" he called.  
  
"Man!" said the 'woman', turning around to reveal that she really was a man.  
  
"Oh! I'm sorry," Scott said apologetically. "Can you tell me who lives in that castle over there?"  
  
"I'm 37," said the man.  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"I'm 37! I'm not old!"  
  
"Well, I can't just call you 'Man', can I?" Scott asked.  
  
"You could say Dennis," replied the man.  
  
"I didn't know you were called Dennis,"  
  
"Well, you didn't really bother to find out, did you?" Dennis asked him sarcastically.  
  
Dennis turned away and continued walking back down the path.  
  
Scott walked up to Dennis again. "Look, I did say sorry about the old woman," he said, getting a little agitated at Dennis' rudeness. "It's just that from behind, you look just like,"  
  
"What I object to is you automatically treating me like an inferior!" Dennis interrupted him.  
  
Scott was puzzled. Why was this man treating like this? Then he remembered that he had the appearance of royalty.  
  
"Well, I am a king, you know,"  
  
"Oh, king, eh? Very nice," Dennis said, rolling his eyes. "And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever going to be any progress,"  
  
"Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here!"  
  
Scott turned to see an old woman kneeling in a ditch on the side of the road, scraping out some mud with her hands.  
  
"Oh, how do you do?" she asked Scott as she saw him.  
  
"How do you do, good lady?" Scott replied. "I am Arthur, King of the Britons. Whose castle is that?" he asked, pointing to the castle on the hill.  
  
"King of the who?" asked the woman.  
  
"The Britons,"  
  
"Who are the Britons?"  
  
"We all are," said Scott. "We are all Britons, and I am your king,"  
  
"I didn't know we had a king," mused the woman. "I thought we were an autonomous collective,"  
  
"You're fooling yourself!" said Dennis. "We're living in a dictatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes,"  
  
"Oh, there you go, bringing class into it again!" the woman chided.  
  
"Well that's what it's all about!" Dennis argued. "If only people would hear of,"  
  
"Please, please, good people," Scott interrupted. "I am in haste! Who lives in that castle?"  
  
"No one lives there," grumbled the woman.  
  
"Then who is your lord?"  
  
"We don't have a lord!" she snapped.  
  
"What?" Scott asked. From all of the history books he had read, Scott knew that peasants always lived under the protection of some lord or king.  
  
"I told you," explained Dennis. "We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as sort of an executive officer for the week,"  
  
"Yes," Scott muttered, not really in the mood for a civics lesson.  
  
"But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi- weekly meeting," Dennis continued.  
  
"Yes, I see!" Scott said gruffly.  
  
"By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,"  
  
I don't have time for this, Scott thought. "Be quiet!" he shouted, trying to exert some kingly authority.  
  
Dennis ignored him and continued talking. "But by a two-thirds majority, in the case of,"  
  
"Be quiet!" Scott shouted again. "I order you to be quiet!"  
  
"Order, eh? Who does he think he is?" asked the woman.  
  
"I am your king!"  
  
"Well I didn't vote for you!"  
  
"You don't vote for kings!" Scott said, exasperated.  
  
"Well how did you become king then?"  
  
Scott paused, trying to recall what he had read about King Arthur in school.  
  
"The lady of the lake," Scott said. "Her arm, clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king!"  
  
"Listen," said Dennis, clearly not impressed. "Strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"  
  
"Be quiet!" Scott insisted.  
  
Dennis continued on. "You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!"  
  
Scott couldn't believe the nerve of this man. "Shut up!" he yelled.  
  
"I mean, if I went round saying I was an emperor," Dennis said, "Just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!"  
  
"Shut up, will you! Shut up!" Scott screamed, turning red in the face.  
  
"Ah! Now we see the violence inherent in the system!" Dennis said.  
  
"Shut up! Scott shouted and kicked Dennis in the backside.  
  
Dennis tried to flee. "Now we see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!" he shouted to some other peasants nearby.  
  
"Bloody peasant!" Scott shouted, and kicked Dennis harder.  
  
"Oh, what a giveaway, you hear that, you hear that eh?" Dennis called to the peasants. "That's what I'm on about! Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?"  
  
Annoyed, Scott waved to Patsy and they skipped away from the peasants as quickly as they could.  
  
X 


	5. That's one nasty flesh wound you've got ...

As they traveled on, Scott began to think that perhaps the other X-Men were somehow playing out the roles of other knights in Arthurian lore. If they were, perhaps they were all at Camelot, Arthur's legendary castle. Scott decided to head that way and see what he found there.  
  
Soon, Scott and Patsy came to a forest. As they passed through, they began to hear sounds of combat. Emerging into a clearing, they saw two knights, one in black armor and the other in green, engaged in a swordfight near a bridge. The two knights fought back and forth for several minutes, with neither having the advantage.  
  
Scott and Patsy watched the combat with a keen interest. Maybe one of these knights could travel along with them as they continued to search for the X- Men.  
  
The battle raged on until the green knight picked up a mace off the ground and charged at his opponent. Before he could strike, though, the black knight hurled his sword through the air. His aim was true, and the point of the sword pierced the green knight's visor, killing him. The black knight walked over to his fallen opponent, grabbed the hilt of his sword and pulled it out of the knight's helmet. He wiped the blood off on the grass, then walked over to the bridge and took up a sentry position.  
  
Scott nodded at Patsy and they approached the knight.  
  
"You fight with the strength of many men, good sir knight!" Scott hailed. The knight stood motionless and did not respond.  
  
Scott was slightly put off by the knight's silence but tried again. "I seek the finest and the bravest knights in the land to join me in my court at Camelot. Will you join me?"  
  
Again, the black knight did not reply.  
  
"You make me sad," Scott said. "Come, Patsy," he said, and they approached the bridge.  
  
"None shall pass," said the knight, finally speaking.  
  
"What?"  
  
"None shall pass!"  
  
"I have no quarrel with you, good sir knight," said Scott. "But I must cross this bridge,"  
  
"Then you shall die," said the knight.  
  
"I command you, as king of the Britons, to stand aside!" Scott ordered.  
  
"I move for no man," said the knight.  
  
"So be it!" said Scott, reaching up to his visor. He touched the button that opened the visor to release an optic blast at the knight, but nothing happened.  
  
My powers are gone! Now what am I going to do? Scott thought as the black knight raised his sword and began to approach menacingly.  
  
"Your sword!" called Patsy. "Use your sword, sire!"  
  
Scott looked at the sword on his belt. This must be the legendary Excalibur. He had never fought with a sword before, but right now he didn't have much of a choice if he wanted to survive this encounter. He drew it out and prepared to face the black knight.  
  
The black knight swung his sword at Scott, who raised Excalibur to parry the blow. There was a clang of metal as the two swords collided, and Scott nearly had his own sword knocked out of his hand by the blow.  
  
I'd better stay away from him, thought Scott. He changed his tactics and focused on dodging the knight's attacks rather than try to overcome his superior strength.  
  
Again and again, the black knight swung at him and again and again Scott dodged the sword thrusts. Finally, he saw an opening to attack and swung Excalibur with all his might. The sword struck the knight at the left shoulder and lopped his arm completely off.  
  
Scott stepped back as the knight looked down at his arm, lying on the ground.  
  
"Now, stand aside, worthy adversary!" Scott said.  
  
"Tis but a scratch!" said the knight.  
  
"A scratch?" Scott asked incredulously. "Your arm's off!"  
  
"No it isn't!" said the knight.  
  
"Well what's that then?" Scott asked, pointing at the severed arm with his sword.  
  
"I've had worse,"  
  
"You lie!"  
  
"Come on, you pansy!" the knight challenged, and began to attack again. Scott quickly found himself on the defensive again, fending off the knight's wild attacks. As the knight charged at him again, Scott stepped out of the way and swung his sword again as the knight ran past him, and cut off his other arm.  
  
"Victory is mine!" Scott shouted. He knelt down and began to wipe the blood off his sword. He did not see the black knight walk up behind him.  
  
"Hah!" shouted the knight and kicked Scott in the back. "Come on, then!" he said.  
  
"You are indeed brave, sir knight but the fight is mine!" Scott said.  
  
"Oh, I see. Had enough, eh?"  
  
Scott couldn't believe that he was being challenged to continue by a knight with no arms.  
  
"Look, you stupid idiot, you've got no arms left!" he said.  
  
"Yes I have,"  
  
"Look!"  
  
"It's just a flesh wound!" said the knight, and kicked Scott again.  
  
"Look, stop that!" said Scott.  
  
"Chicken! Chick-eenn!" taunted the knight as he danced around Scott, kicking him randomly.  
  
"Look, I'll have your leg!" said Scott. The knight ignored him and kicked him one more time.  
  
"Right!" shouted Scott, and cut off one of the knight's legs.  
  
"Right, I'll do you for that!" said the knight, jumping up and down on his one leg.  
  
"You'll what?"  
  
"Come here!" shouted the knight and started hopping toward Scott.  
  
"What are you going to do, bleed on me?"  
  
"I'm invincible!"  
  
"You're a looney!"  
  
"The black knight always triumphs!" screamed the knight. "Come on, then!"  
  
Scott shook his head and cut off the knight's other leg, and the knight fell to the ground.  
  
"Alright, we'll call it a draw. Come, Patsy," said Scott, and he and Patsy started over the bridge.  
  
"Oh, I see," called the now quadriplegic knight. "Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off!"  
  
Scott and Patsy ignored the raving knight and continued over the bridge and out of the forest. Soon, they found themselves in a nearby village.  
  
X 


	6. Witch Discovery 101

In the village, a procession of monks was walking through the streets. They were chanting in Latin and carrying wooden tablets in their hands. As they chanted, the monks would occasionally hit themselves in the head with the tablets, in rhythm to the chant.  
  
"Pie Jesu domine, dona eis requiem," chanted the monks. Smack! And so on.  
  
The procession went on through the streets. Three young men walked near the back. Although they were carrying the same tablets as the rest of the monks, their attire made them look very out of place.  
  
"Hey, Lance, how much longer do we have to keep this up? My head's starting to hurt!" complained Fred.  
  
"Yeah, I don't even know what these freaks are sayin'!" said Toad. "How'd we get dragged into this anyway, yo?"  
  
"Let's just keep following them," said Lance, smacking himself in the head with his tablet and trying to ignore the pain. Why were people in the Middle Ages so stupid, anyway, he thought.  
  
Lance and the two other members of the Brotherhood had appeared at the edge of town after emerging from the vortex. Before they could figure out where they were and how they had arrived there, the monks had come along and, without asking, corralled the mutants into following their procession. Lance tried to reassure his friends. "Look, these guys are monks or something. They're bound to lead us to someone who can tell us where we are and how we can get out of here,"  
  
The three mutants continued on behind the procession, hoping that they would be able to find out some kind of useful information before they wound up with concussions from hitting themselves over and over again.  
  
X  
  
Meanwhile, a few blocks away, a large mob was running frantically through the streets, carrying a young woman above their heads. The woman, who had a very short haircut and was wearing a scarlet robe, was bound tightly in ropes. She also had a carrot tied around her face and a strainer on top of her head. The mob was shouting over and over again, "Witch! Witch! We've found a witch!"  
  
The mob approached a tall scaffold in the town square. A knight named Bedevire was standing on top of it. A ponytail of red hair trailed out from beneath the knight's helmet. A few men out of the mob led the witch up to the top of the scaffold as the rest waited down below.  
  
"We have found a witch! May we burn her?" asked the leader of the mob. Below, the mob cried out loudly, "Burn her! Burn her!"  
  
The knight raised the hinged visor on his helmet to reveal not a man's face but that of a young woman. "How do you know she is a witch?" she asked.  
  
"She looks like one!" said the leader. The crowd echoed his response.  
  
"Bring her forward," said Bedevire.  
  
The witch protested as the leader pushed her forwards. "I'm not a witch, I'm not a witch!" she said.  
  
"But you are dressed as one," Bedevire observed.  
  
"They dressed me up like this!" said the witch.  
  
"No we didn't!" shouted the mob.  
  
"And this isn't my nose, it's a false one!" said the witch, pointing at the carrot.  
  
Bedevire pulled the carrot away from the witch's face. "Well?" she asked the mob leader.  
  
"Well, we did do the nose," he admitted.  
  
"The nose?" asked Bedevire.  
  
"And the hat. But she is a witch!" he insisted. "Burn her!" the crowd below roared.  
  
"Did you dress her up like this?" asked Bedevire.  
  
"No!" protested the mob leader. "No, no, no, no, well, alright, yes, a bit, a bit,"  
  
"She's got a wart!" said one of the other men on the platform, pointing at a small mole on the witch's face.  
  
"What makes you think she's a witch?" Bedevire asked.  
  
"She turned me into a newt!" claimed one of the people in the mob.  
  
"A newt?" asked Bedevire, looking curiously down at the very-human looking man.  
  
The man looked around nervously. "I, I got better,"  
  
"Burn her anyway!" shouted another man in the mob, and the whole crowd began roaring and screaming again.  
  
Bedevire held up her hands, trying to silence the crowd. "Quiet, quiet, quiet, please!" she shouted above the din. "There are ways of telling whether she is a witch," she began to explain.  
  
"Are there? Well tell us!" insisted the mob leader. "Tell us, tell us!" shouted the mob.  
  
"Tell me, what do you do with witches?" she asked.  
  
"Burn them!" shouted the whole crowd immediately.  
  
"And what do you burn apart from witches?"  
  
"More witches!" shouted the former newt in the crowd. The man next to him slapped him in the back of the head, and then said to Bedevire, "Wood!"  
  
"So, why do witches burn?" asked Bedevire.  
  
The crowd was silent for a few moments, and then one man ventured a guess.  
  
"Because, they're made out of wood?" he said, unsure of himself.  
  
"Good!" said Bedevire. The man in the crowd chuckled a bit at his own cleverness.  
  
"So, how do we tell if she is made of wood?" she asked, continuing her exercise in medieval logic.  
  
"Build a bridge out of her!" said the mob leader.  
  
"Ah, but can you not also build bridges out of stone?" Bedevire asked.  
  
"Oh yeah, right, right," said the leader.  
  
"Does wood sink in water?" asked Bedevire.  
  
"No, no," said the leader.  
  
"No, it floats, it floats!" said a man in the crowd.  
  
"Throw her into the pond!" somebody shouted, and the crowd went wild and surged toward the scaffold.  
  
X  
  
While all this was going on, Scott and Patsy had entered the town square from the far end to see what all the commotion was about. Scott squinted at the woman in the red dress, trying to see who she was.  
  
"Wanda?" he asked aloud as he recognized her.  
  
"You know that woman, sire?" asked Patsy nervously. "Dangerous one, she's supposed to be. Heard she turns men into snails and what not. Best not to be cavorting around with her,"  
  
"No, I don't know her. I just thought she looked familiar," Scott said, and then looked at the knight on the scaffold. There was something familiar about the knight's appearance.  
  
Bedevire held up her arms again and the crowd quieted down. "What else floats in water?" she asked.  
  
"Bread!" guessed one villager.  
  
"Apples!" said another.  
  
"Very small rocks!" called a third.  
  
Scott suddenly recognized Jean's voice coming from the knight on the scaffold.  
  
"Jean!" he shouted, trying to get her attention. "Jean!!!"  
  
Bedevire did not her Scott in the crowd, and instead continued entertaining the random guesses.  
  
"Cider! Gravy! Churches!" people were shouting. "Lead, lead!" guessed one man.  
  
"A duck!" called Scott, quickly figuring out the riddle. The crowd grew silent and turned to look at him.  
  
"Exactly," said Bedevire. "So, logically."  
  
"If she, weighs the same as a duck," said the mob leader, trying to work it all out. "Then, she's made out of wood,"  
  
"And therefore," said Bedevire, leading him on.  
  
"A witch!" shouted the mob leader, arriving at the answer. The crowd below again erupted in shouts of "A witch! Burn her! Burn her!" Scott found himself jostled out of the way as the crowd separated to let Bedevire come down off the scaffold.  
  
"Come, come, we shall use my largest scales!" Bedevire said and led the witch over to a large pair of suspended wicker cages. Bedevire put the witch in one of them and closed the door, then placed a duck into the second.  
  
"Right! Remove the supports!" shouted Bedevire.  
  
A man with a large hammer walked up to the scales. He swung the hammer and knocked away the support holding the scales balanced. For a moment neither cage moved, and then the cage with the duck sank down as the witch's cage slowly rose into the air.  
  
"A witch! She's a witch!" the mob shouted triumphantly.  
  
"It's a fair, cop," muttered the witch as the mob pulled her out of the cage and led her off to be burned.  
  
X  
  
Bedevire walked up to Scott as the mob ran off. "Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?" she asked him.  
  
"Jean! It's me!" Scott shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Can't you recognize me? Can't you tell what's going on?" he asked desperately.  
  
"Who is this Jean?" Bedevire asked, removing her helmet. Scott saw that it was indeed Jean Grey in the suit of armor, although she seemed to have no idea who she really was.  
  
Who did you say you are, oh wise one?" she asked again.  
  
"Um, I am Arthur," Scott said, disappointed that Jean didn't recognize him. "King of the Britons,"  
  
"My liege!" Bedevire exclaimed.  
  
Scott decided to ask Jean to come with him to Camelot. Perhaps he'd be able to jog her memory along the way.  
  
"Good, uh, madam knight, will you come with me to Camelot, and join us at the Round Table?"  
  
Bedevire knelt in front of Scott. "My liege! I would be honored!"  
  
"Tell me, what is your name?" Scott asked her.  
  
"Bedevire, my liege," she replied.  
  
Scott drew his sword and touched Jean on her shoulder. "Then I dub thee, um, Lady Bedevire, Knight of the Round Table!"  
  
Bedevire arose, and the three of the skipped out of town and continued on towards Camelot.  
  
X  
  
Meanwhile, the procession of monks had made its way into the square and was entering a church. Lance, Toad and Fred saw Scott, Jean and Patsy just as they were skipping off.  
  
"No way!" exclaimed Lance. "Was that Summers and Jean?"  
  
"What are they doing here?" asked Toad.  
  
"Maybe they got picked up by that thing that brought us here," said Fred.  
  
"Hey, let's try and catch up with 'em," said Toad. "Maybe they can help us get out of this place!"  
  
The three mutants tried to follow after Scott and Jean, but they found themselves surrounded by the monks.  
  
"Hey, what's going on?" asked Lance as the monks grabbed his arms. "Hey, put me down!"  
  
The monks ignored Lance's protests and dragged the three mutants inside the church.  
  
Inside the church, several men wearing robes were standing around a circle. A priest wearing a skull mask was conducting some kind of ritual, tracing a diagram on the floor and scattering sand around it.  
  
The monks led the mutants into the middle of the church and placed them in the middle of the diagram.  
  
"Man, I got a bad feeling about this, yo," said Toad, trembling nervously.  
  
"Hey, I don't think these guys are monks," said Lance. "I think they're druids or something!"  
  
"What are they gonna do to us?" asked Fred.  
  
"I'm not stickin' around to find out," said Lance and clenched his fists to use his powers.  
  
"Hey, what's wrong?" asked Toad as Lance strained, but nothing happened.  
  
"I don't know!" Lance said. "I can't make my powers work!"  
  
Toad tried to cough up some slime but found that his throat was suddenly very dry. "Mine aren't either!" he wheezed. "We're doomed!"  
  
As if on cue, the man wearing the skull mask turned to face them and raised his staff. The druids began chanting, and a green light began to appear at the tip of the man's staff, growing brighter and brighter as the chants grew louder.  
  
The leader of the druids shouted something at the three mutants and pointed his staff at them. Lance, Fred and Toad screamed as the light swallowed them up, and then they vanished.  
  
X  
  
Next time: Magneto and Mystique play film critics, and Scott finds a rare bit of normalcy as well as some more of his fellow "knights" 


	7. Of course it's a model! Do you think we ...

In his fortress, Magneto sat with his feet propped up on the table in his command chamber, which had been converted to an entertainment theatre, as he watched Scott navigate his way through the Python Dimension. So far, Scott had managed to find two other knights to accompany him to Camelot: Sir Lancelot, the Brave, who looked a lot like Logan, and Sir Robin, the Not Quite as Brave as Sir Lancelot. Robin bore a striking resemblance to Evan.  
  
As Magneto sat chuckling at Scott's growing consternation as he dealt with all the situations he found himself in, Mystique walked into the theatre and sat down next to him.  
  
"What are you watching?" she asked.  
  
"It's my most fiendish plan yet!" Magneto boasted. "I've trapped all the X- Men in a parallel universe, and their powers are useless! They'll never return!" he laughed.  
  
"That's what you've said before," Mystique said. "And they've always managed to find their way out of your traps. Remember the time you tried to b  
  
"This is different," Magneto insisted. "Besides Cyclops, none of them know who they are. They all think they're knights and that Cyclops is King Arthur. Trust me, they're never coming back,"  
  
"We'll see," said Mystique, and took a closer look at the screen. She watched for a few minutes, then turned to Magneto.  
  
"This looks familiar," she said. "Like something I saw in a movie once,"  
  
"Well, it's not called the 'Python Dimension' for nothing," Magneto said with a wink.  
  
Mystique grinned as she got the joke, and then burst out laughing. "You're right, this is different!" With that, she leaned back to watch the madness unfold.  
  
X  
  
By now, Scott and his fellow knights were only a swallow's flight away from Camelot. They were passing through a village, and on their way they were hearing strange stories about a heroic savior.  
  
"Perhaps we should try and find this savior, my liege," suggested Bedevire. "If he's a knight, he'd make a great addition to your court,"  
  
"Where do you suggest we look?" Scott asked her. "He could be anywhere,"  
  
"Perhaps we should check the local tavern, milord," Robin suggested. "That's where I'd be if I were a heroic savior, er, I mean, since I'm a heroic savior myself,"  
  
"Right," Scott said, still not getting over Evan's cheesy British accent and mustache. The knights headed for the tavern, their squires following behind and banging their coconuts.  
  
A few minutes later, they came to the tavern. There was a lot of noise coming from inside, and Lancelot guessed that their heroic savior was probably entertaining the townspeople.  
  
"This looks like the place," said Scott, and reached for the door.  
  
As he started to open the door, the sky went dark as a large shadow blotted out the sun.  
  
"Strange," said Bedevire. "I didn't think there were going to be any eclipses this month,"  
  
"It's not an eclipse!" said Scott, looking up. "Run away!"  
  
The knights scattered as a gigantic foot came crashing down on the tavern, obliterating it with a loud farting noise. Debris went flying everywhere and covered the knights. A moment later, the foot vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared.  
  
X  
  
In his theatre, Magneto was clutching his sides in laughter. "I'm SO glad I bought that dimensional transporter instead of paying for Pietro to take driving lessons last month! This is much more hilarious!"  
  
Mystique was just as beside herself. "I hope you're recording this," she laughed, as the show went on.  
  
X  
  
Scott pulled himself out of the rubble. "Is everybody alright?" he asked.  
  
The other knights slowly extricated themselves from the remains of the tavern and sat up. Robin's helmet had gotten twisted around completely backwards.  
  
"That's the last time I listen to you, bub!" said Lancelot. "Why don't you go and nearly defeat the Chicken of Agnor again,"  
  
"Ahh! Don't mention that horrid beast!" said Robin, straightening his helmet. "That thing almost pecked my eyes out! I barely escaped with my life from that one!"  
  
"Look, maybe we should go and look in the church instead," Scott suggested. "If our heroic savior's a knight, he'll probably be praying or something,"  
  
The knights collected themselves and headed off for the church, hoping that no more massive feet would try and crush them along the way.  
  
X  
  
Scott opened the door of the church and walked inside, the other knights following behind. In the dim light, Scott could make out a solitary figure with long hair sitting in front of the altar. He also noticed something twitching on the ground behind the person's feet.  
  
"Wait here," Scott told the other knights as he realized who he was looking at.  
  
He walked up behind the man at the altar. "Kurt?" he asked.  
  
Kurt gasped and turned around as he heard Scott's voice. "Scott? Is that you?" he asked, then jumped up and grabbed Scott in a tight elf-hug.  
  
"Ack! Kurt! My ribs!" Scott shouted, and Kurt eased up.  
  
"Scott, what is going on here?" Kurt asked him. "I haven't seen anybody else until you showed up just now, my powers aren't working, I'm dressed up like some kind of knight and everybody is calling me Sir Galahad the Chaste! I don't even know what 'chaste' means!" he said.  
  
"Um, I'll tell you later," Scott said. "Look, I don't really know what's going on. From what I can tell, Magneto's vortex sent us to some kind of parallel dimension. I'm supposed to be King Arthur, and I think the rest of the X- Men are the knights of the Round Table,"  
  
"Have you found anybody else yet? Please tell me it's not just us stuck here!" Kurt begged him.  
  
"No, it's not just us," said Scott. "So far I've found Bobby, Jean, Logan, and Evan. But there's a problem,"  
  
"We're stuck in another dimension, and you're telling me there's a 'problem'?" Kurt asked him sarcastically.  
  
"None of them know who they are," Scott explained. "They think they're really the knights of the Round Table,"  
  
"Oh, that's just great," said Kurt. "You and I are the only sane ones here. We're doomed!"  
  
"Come on, get a grip," Scott insisted. "There's got to be some way to get out of this dimension,"  
  
"I just hope we find it soon," said Kurt. "This dimension is giving me the creeps! It's like something out of a bad movie or something,"  
  
Scott led Kurt back to the other knights. After the introductions, the knights set back off for Camelot.  
  
X  
  
As the sun began to set on the horizon, the knights approached Camelot. Bedevire had been sharing some more medieval logic with Scott, who found himself fascinated with what he was hearing.  
  
"This new learning amazes me, Bedevire. Explain again how sheep's bladders may be used to prevent earthquakes," he said.  
  
"Certainly, sir," Bedevire began, but Lancelot interrupted.  
  
"Look, my liege!" he cried out. "Camelot!"  
  
Sure enough, the knights could see a large castle on the nearby hilltop. The sun was setting behind it, making the castle stand out in the glare. As Scott squinted against the sun, he thought he saw that the castle looked a bit like the Institute.  
  
"Camelot!" he said.  
  
"Camelot!" the other knights echoed.  
  
"It's only a model," said Patsy.  
  
"Shh!" said Scott, not wanting to give away his small castle-building budget. "Knights, I bid you welcome to your new home! Let us ride to, Camelot!"  
  
Meanwhile, inside the castle, the inhabitants and other knights were having a grand feast. As Scott and the others drew close to the drawbridge, they could hear the sounds of singing inside. They went like this:  
  
"We're Knights of the Round Table! We dance when e'er we're able. We do routines and chorus scenes With footwork impeccable. We dine well here in Camelot. We eat ham and jam and spam a lot!"  
  
"What's going on in there?" Scott asked, trying to make sense of the song. Inside, the song continued, as the knights began to dance around the great hall.  
  
"We're knights of the Round Table. Our shows are formidable, But many times we're given rhymes That are quite unsingable. We're opera mad in Camelot. We sing from the diaphragm a lot,"  
  
The sounds of the party were carrying throughout the castle, all the way down to the dungeon, where the prisoners were clapping along in time. Back upstairs, several knights jumped up on the banquet table and began tap- dancing while others banged on pots and pans, creating a metallic percussion rhythm.  
  
"In war we're tough and able, Quite indefatigable. Between our quests we sequin vests and impersonate Clark Gable. It's a busy life in Camelot,"  
  
The music came to an abrupt stop as one knight took a knee and raised his hand in an operatic stance.  
  
"I have to push the pram a lot!" he intoned in a deep tenor voice.  
  
The knights cheered and resumed their song and dance.  
  
X  
  
Outside, Scott's knights were exchanging curious glances with each other. After a moment's thought, Scott made up his mind.  
  
"No, on second thought, let us not go to Camelot after all. It is a silly place," he said.  
  
"Right, right" agreed the other knights, and they turned around and skipped away from the castle.  
  
X  
  
Next time: Scott and the others see a sign from above and have a run-in with a familiar adversary. Take one guess who winds up as the French guard (evil grin) 


	8. We're on a mission from God, or, what to...

Back in Bayville, Xavier was very concerned. The X-Men had not yet returned from their battle with Magneto, and all of the new mutants had just vanished as well. He reached out with his mind and tried to find Scott and the others. After many minutes, he finally located Scott's signature and began trying to contact him.  
  
X  
  
Scott and the knights were skipping through yet another field in England, having left Camelot behind the day before. Scott felt confused and uncertain, and he didn't really know what they were supposed to be doing in this strange dimension.  
  
"I wish somebody would tell me what the point of all this is," he muttered to himself.  
  
No sooner had he spoken those words than there was a clap of thunder from above. Scott looked up to see a large cloud appearing overhead. A loud voice spoke from within the clouds.  
  
"Arthur, Arthur!" called the voice.  
  
Scott recognized the voice as Xavier's. "Professor!" he shouted back, then turned to Kurt. "Kurt, it's the Professor! He's trying to contact us!"  
  
As Scott turned to Kurt, he saw Bedevire, Lancelot, and Robin kneeling on the ground.  
  
"What are you doing?" he asked them.  
  
"Quickly sire, kneel down!" said Lancelot. "That's the voice of God!"  
  
"Yeah, get down quick!" said Robin. "You wouldn't want him to see you like this and smite you, would you?" he asked.  
  
Scott and Kurt knelt down uncertainly and waited for something to happen. A few moments later, Xavier's head materialized in the clouds and a heavenly choir of angels began to sing.  
  
"Arthur! Arthur! King of the Britons!" said Xavier's head, then looked down and saw Scott and the other knights on their knees.  
  
"Oh, don't grovel!" he said, and the angels immediately stopped singing. "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people groveling,"  
  
"Sorry," said Scott.  
  
"And don't apologize!" Xavier thundered. "Every time I try to talk to someone it's 'Sorry' this and 'Forgive me' that and 'I'm not worthy'. What are you doing now?"  
  
"I'm averting my eyes, lord," Scott said.  
  
"Well don't!" Xavier said. "It's like those miserable psalms. They're so depressing! Now knock it off!"  
  
"Yes, lord!"  
  
"Right!" said Xavier. "Arthur, King of the Britons, your knights of the Round Table shall have a task to make them an example in these dark times,"  
  
"Good idea, lord!" Scott said sycophantically. Maybe he'll tell us how we can get home!, he thought.  
  
"Of course it's a good idea! Behold!" said Xavier, and the angels began singing again as an image of a chalice appeared in the clouds next to Xavier's head.  
  
"Arthur, this is the Holy Grail. Look well, Arthur, for it is your sacred task to seek this grail. This is your purpose, Arthur, the Quest for the Holy Grail!"  
  
With that, Xavier's visage faded away, leaving only the cloud in the sky.  
  
"A blessing! A blessing from the lord!" said Lancelot.  
  
"God be praised!" said Bedevire.  
  
"What was that all about?" asked Kurt.  
  
Bedevire, Robin, and Lancelot looked at Kurt like he had just sprouted wings. Scott pulled him aside.  
  
"I don't know if that was the Professor trying to contact us or not, but I've read about this Grail. It's supposed to have the power to grant wishes,"  
  
"So if we find it, we can use it to wish ourselves out of this wretched dimension!" Kurt said.  
  
"Exactly. And actually, you're the one who's supposed to find it. Well, Galahad is, anyway,"  
  
"Really? Cool!" said Kurt.  
  
"Yeah, but you sort of die right afterwards," Scott said.  
  
"What?" Kurt asked incredulously. "Hang on, I don't want to die! You find it!"  
  
"Hey, relax!" said Scott. "We'll just make sure to use our wish before you get killed by whatever happens to you,"  
  
"This better work," said Kurt. "If I wind up dead, I'll never forgive you,"  
  
"Don't worry, you'll be fine," Scott reassured him. "Now, we need to get some more companions, and then we can be off,"  
  
X  
  
Xavier broke his contact with Scott as he realized where the X-Men were, and who was responsible for them being there. "Good god!" he shouted, and headed for his limo. He needed to get to Magneto right away to try and stop this madness.  
  
X  
  
Before they started their quest, Scott and the knights returned to Camelot to get supplies and additional squires. After enduring a bit more silly singing and dancing, they set off on their quest with their additional companions and equipment. Now, every knight had their own squire. Kurt's bore a resemblance to Ray, Bedevire's looked considerably like Amara, and Logan's squire looked quite a bit like Roberto. Meanwhile, Robin had found 5 young boys at the castle, all identical quintuplets, named James, Percy, Oliver, Tyler, and Winston. The boys were all skilled musicians, and Robin, who loved hearing people sing his praises, couldn't resist them. Now the party galloped across the countryside with a purpose, intent on finding the Holy Grail. As they rode, a majestic march resounded through the skies overhead.  
  
Soon, they approached a castle. The march swelled to a grand crescendo and then abruptly stopped as Patsy pulled out a bugle and blew a muffled call on it. For a moment, nothing happened, and then Scott saw a man appear on the castle walls.  
  
"Allo? Who ees eet?" the man asked in a very thick accent.  
  
"It is Arthur, and these are my Knights of the Round Table!" Scott called back. "Whose. wait, Pietro?" he asked, suddenly recognizing the man on the wall. "How did YOU get here?"  
  
"There ees no 'Pietro' here! This is the castle of my master, Guy de Lombard!"  
  
Great, thought Scott. Now the Brotherhood was mixed up in this. "Well, go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest! If he will give us food and shelter for the night, he can join us in our quest for the Holy Grail!"  
  
"Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen-a. Uh, he's already got one, you see?"  
  
"What?" asked Scott.  
  
"He says he's already got one!" said Kurt.  
  
"Are you sure he's got one?" Scott asked.  
  
"Oh yes, it's very nice-a!" said Pietro, then he leaned over and whispered to another guard next to him. "I told him we've already got one!" Both men began laughing.  
  
"Well, can we come up and have a look?" asked Scott.  
  
"Of course not!" said Pietro. "You are Eenglish types-a!"  
  
"Well what are you supposed to be, then?" asked Scott.  
  
"I'm French! Why do you think I have this out-RAGE-ous accent, you seely king-a?" Pietro called back.  
  
"What are you doing in England?" asked Lancelot.  
  
"Mind your own business!" Pietro snapped back.  
  
Scott was growing impatient. "If you will not show us the Grail, we will take this castle by force!"  
  
"You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs!" Pietro shouted. "Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person! I blow my nose at you, so-called 'Arthur' king-a, you and all your silly English kaahhhh-nigg-etts!" He stuck out his tongue and began blowing raspberries at them, and clapped his hands on top of his hemlet.  
  
"He's even weirder in this dimension than he is back in ours," Kurt said.  
  
"No kidding," said Scott, and turned back to Pietro. "Now look here, my good man," he tried again.  
  
"I don't wanna talk to you no more-a, you empty-headed animal food-trough wiper!" Pietro shouted, continuing his withering taunts. "I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!"  
  
"Is there someone else up there we could talk to?" asked Kurt.  
  
"No! Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a!" Pietro said.  
  
"This is your last chance!" Scott threatened. "I've been more than reasonable!"  
  
Pietro ignored Scott and turned to his companion, and begin whispering to him in French. The guard nodded and ran inside the castle. A few minutes later, he returned, leading a cow behind him. The two guards loaded the cow into a catapult and launched it into the air.  
  
"If you do not agree to my commands, then I shall, Jesus Christ!" Scott began to say, then panicked as the cow flew through the air towards them.  
  
"Run away!" Scott shouted, and the knights retreated to safety. The cow landed a few feet behind them as the knights dove behind a small hill.  
  
"Right! Charge!" Scott shouted, drawing his sword. The other knights drew their swords and charged towards the castle. Lancelot led the charge, claws flashing in the sunlight.  
  
Undaunted, the French guards began pelting the charging knights with everything they could grab: eggs, chickens, very small rocks, cherries, and all other kinds of debris. Scott covered his head as a pot-full of dirty water cascaded down on him. He and the knights were overwhelmed.  
  
"Run away!" he called and ran for safety.  
  
"Run away! Run away!" shouted the other knights as they followed after him. Lancelot actually made it to the castle and slashed at the walls once with his claws before he was forced to retreat.  
  
Scott and the knights knelt behind the hill again as the French guards laughed at them from the castle.  
  
"Fiends! I'll tear them apart!" Lancelot shouted, standing up to charge again.  
  
"No, no, wait!" Scott said, grabbing his arm.  
  
"Sir, I have a plan, sir," said Bedevire, with a cunning look on her face. The other knights huddled around her as she told them about her plan.  
  
X  
  
Pietro leaned over the castle wall to see where Scott and the rest of the knights were, but he saw no trace of them.  
  
Ha! We taught those daffy ka-niggets a thing or two, he thought to himself. Then he heard strange noises coming the forest. He cocked his head and listened closer, and he could make out sawing, hammering, and other sounds of something big being built. Then he heard a faint rumble that grew louder and louder as it got closer. Something big was coming this way. He grew worried, thinking that the knights might have something up their sleeves, and gasped and dove out of sight as he saw something emerge from the forest. Nothing happened for a few minutes, so he looked up and saw a large wooden rabbit sitting at the front gate of the castle. He looked at it for a minute, expecting something to happen, but nothing did. He called to one of the other guards to have a look, and then they went down to the gate, opened the gate, and drug the rabbit inside the castle.  
  
Scott and the knights watched this from their hiding place.  
  
"Hah! They fell for it!" said Kurt.  
  
"What happens now?" Scott asked Bedevire.  
  
Bedevire raised the hinged visor on her helmet. "Well, now we wait until nightfall," she said, "And then Lancelot, Galahad and I, uh, leap out of the rabbit, taking the French completely by surprise. And not only by surprise, but totally unarmed!"  
  
"Uh, who leaps out?" Scott asked, sensing a flaw in this plan.  
  
"Um, Lancelot, Galahad, and, er I, uh, we, leap out, of, uh, the rabbit." Bedevire said, realizing her mistake.  
  
Scott groaned and rolled his eyes. Kurt buried his head in his hands and began sobbing. They would never find the Grail at this rate.  
  
"Um, look, perhaps if we built a giant wooden badger," Bedevire said.  
  
"Oh, shut up!" said Scott, and smacked Bedevire on the back of her helmet, knocking her visor back down over her face.  
  
Suddenly there was a loud TWONG!!! Scott and the knights looked up to see the wooden rabbit hurtling towards them like a meteor.  
  
"Run away!" Scott screamed.  
  
"Run away! Run away! Run away!" shouted the knights and scattered for cover. Patsy stood motionless, petrified by fear, and screamed as the rabbit crashed down on him, crushing him like an ant.  
  
Scott and the other knights fled from the castle as fast as they could, the laughing taunts of the French guards ringing in their ears.  
  
X 


	9. The Tale of Sir Robin

Back in the fortress, Magneto was barely still in his chair after watching Pietro taunt Scott and the rest of the X-Men. Mystique gave him a sly grin.  
  
"Hmm, how appropriate that Pietro gets stuck as the taunting guard that fends off those idiots all by themselves," she said.  
  
"Even in chaos, there must be some order," Magneto said slyly, and they both broke out laughing again.  
  
After Mystique got a hold of her self, she asked Magneto, "So, what are they going to do now?"  
  
"If Scott is any kind of leader, he'll realize that they'll need to split up to find the Grail. After all, it's a big scary dimension they're stuck in," he said.  
  
"Should be interesting," Mystique said. Suddenly, something on another screen caught her eye.  
  
"Oh, look who's here," she said, looking at Xavier sitting on the front porch. "Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you use your Evil Chaos Inducer © to send him to the Rocky Horror dimension? He'd be perfect for Dr. Scott,"  
  
"Hah!" Magneto chuckled. "Good one. As tempting as that would be, I think we'll wait until another time to do that one. Let's invite him up instead, so he can watch the fun,"  
  
Magneto leaned over and pressed a button on the side of his recliner. Outside the fortress, a giant crane came to life and lowered down above Xavier. The crane's claws opened, grabbed onto the sides of Xavier's wheelchair, and hoisted him up like a prize in an arcade machine. The crane lifted Xavier up and into Magneto's theatre.  
  
"Well, look what we've won!" said Mystique as the crane deposited Xavier in the theatre.  
  
"Magneto!" Xavier shouted. "What have you done with the X-Men?"  
  
"Oh, nothing too bizarre," said Magneto. "They're actually doing quite well so far in their new home,"  
  
"Bring them back, now!"  
  
"Oh, why so soon?" Magneto asked. "They're not in any peril, after all. And it's been so much fun watching them bumble their way through England thinking they're knights. Pull up a chair and watch with us," he invited.  
  
"Do I have a choice?" asked Xavier.  
  
"Not unless you want to wind up wheeling around a floor show in fishnets," Mystique said.  
  
"Fine," said Xavier, and wheeled up to Magneto. "Pass the popcorn, will you?"  
  
"Certainly, Charles. Always glad to share," Magneto said, and handed Xavier the bowl. Xavier took a handful of popcorn and ate it nervously, hoping that Scott and the others would be all right.  
  
X  
  
Defeat at the castle seemed to have utterly disheartened Scott and the rest of the knights. The ferocity of the French taunting took them completely by surprise, and Scott became convinced that a new strategy was required if the quest for the Holy Grail were to be brought to a successful conclusion. Scott, having consulted his closest knights, decided that they should separate, and search for the Grail individually.  
  
So each of the knights went their separate ways. Sir Robin rode north, through the dark forest of Ewing, accompanied by his favorite minstrels. The boys, all quintuplets, all looked and sounded exactly like Jamie. As they skipped through the forest, the minstrels sang a merry song. It went like this:  
  
"Bravely bold Sir Robin Rode forth from Camelot! He was not afraid to die, O brave Sir Robin! He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways! Brave, brave, brave, brave, Sir Robin!"  
  
I wonder if they could sing anything a capella, Robin thought as he looked back nervously at the minstrels. This was not quite the heroic song he had hoped to have sung about him. The minstrels continued on.  
  
"He was not the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp, Or to have his eyes gouged out, and his elbows broken! To have his kneecaps split, and his body burned away, And his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Robin!"  
  
I hope that's not the sort of thing that happens to real heroes, Robin thought. Er, real heroes like me, he added in his mind.  
  
"His head smashed in and his heart cut out, And his liver removed and his bowels unplugged, And his nostrils raped and his bottom burned off, And his pen."  
  
"That's, that's enough music for now, lads!" Robin called, beginning to feel a little queasy. The forest was starting to take on a creepy look to it. "There's dirty work afoot,"  
  
They rode on, a little more cautiously now, through the darkening forest. As they rode, Robin felt a feeling of dread growing stronger in the pit of his stomach. He started at seeing a scary looking tree, and continued on nervously. On the other side of the tree, a knight was impaled upon a massive lance.  
  
As they passed a sign that said "Certain death, this way," two peasants, a man and a woman, skirted past, arguing amongst themselves.  
  
"Anarcho-syndicalism is a way of preserving freedom!" said the man.  
  
"Oh, Dennis, forget about freedom! We haven't got enough mud!" said the woman.  
  
Robin watched the two peasants vanish into the forest. Suddenly, he heard a trio of voices.  
  
"Halt!" asked the voices. The three voices echoed through the forest as if they were amplified.  
  
Robin turned around and saw the scariest thing he had seen in the last 15 minutes: a giant, three-headed knight stood in the middle of the path, towering above him.  
  
The knight's left head turned to the one in the middle. "Hey, it's Daniels!" said Lance's head.  
  
"How'd he get out here?" asked Fred's head in the middle.  
  
On the right, Toad's head joined in the conversation. "Who cares? I just want to find those druids and get them to change us back. I hate being stuck on your body, Fred!" he complained.  
  
"Hey, blame Lance. He's the one who wanted to follow them," Fred's head said.  
  
"Fred, if I could control my arm, I'd smack you right now!" Lance's head shouted at Fred's.  
  
Robin looked on curiously as the three heads continued to argue back and forth, talking about somebody named Daniels that he had never heard of.  
  
Finally, the argument began to break up. "Hey, let's have some fun with Daniels," said Lance's head. The three heads nodded and turned towards Sir Robin.  
  
"Who art thou?" they asked together, their voices again echoing through the trees.  
  
Robin opened his mouth to speak, but the minstrels began singing again.  
  
"He is brave Sir Robin, brave Sir Robin, brave,"  
  
"Shut up!" Robin shouted at them, and then turned to the knight. "Um, n-n-n- nobody really, I'm j-j-just, um, just passing through," he stammered.  
  
"What do you want?" asked the heads.  
  
"To fight and!" sang the minstrels.  
  
"Shut up!" Robin screamed frantically. "Um, oh! Er, nothing, nothing really. I just, uh, just w-w-wanted to, to p-p-pass pass through, good Sir Knight,"  
  
"I'm afraid not!"  
  
Robin darted his eyes back and forth nervously, and decided on a risky strategy. "Ah. W-well, actually, I, I am a knight of the Round Table," he said, hoping his prestige would impress the knight.  
  
"You're a knight of the Round Table?" asked the knight.  
  
"I am," said Robin, a bit bolder now.  
  
"In that case, I shall have to kill you," said Lance's head.  
  
Oh no!, thought Robin. I'm doomed! Why didn't I listen to mother and become a page boy?!  
  
"Shall I" asked Fred's head.  
  
"Oh, I don't think so," said Toad's head, not wanting take the joke too far, especially when Daniels didn't seem to know who he was.  
  
"Well, what do I think?" asked Fred's head.  
  
"I think kill him," said Lance's head, wanting to get rid of one of their rivals.  
  
"Oh, let's be nice to him," said Toad's head.  
  
"Oh, shut up!" snapped Lance's head.  
  
Robin decided that it was time to leave. "Perhaps I should just,"  
  
"And you!" shouted all three heads at him.  
  
"Quick, get the sword out, I want to cut his head off!" said Lance's head.  
  
"Oh, cut your own head off!" said Toad's head.  
  
"Yes, do us all a favor!" said Fred's head.  
  
"What?" asked Lance's head.  
  
"Yapping on all the time!" Toad's head complained.  
  
"You're lucky, you're not next to him!" said Fred's head.  
  
"What do you mean?" asked Lance's head.  
  
"You snore!" said Fred's head.  
  
"Oh, I don't! Anyway, you've got bad breath!" said Lance's head.  
  
"Well it's only because you don't brush my teeth!" said Fred's head.  
  
"Oh, stop whining and let's go have tea!" Toad's head interrupted.  
  
"Oh, all right, all right," said Lance's head. "We'll kill him first, and then have tea and biscuits,"  
  
"Yes," said Fred's head.  
  
"Oh, not biscuits," said Toad's head.  
  
"All right, all right, not biscuits, but let's kill him anyway!" said Lance's head.  
  
"Right!" said all three heads, finally agreeing, and turned back to Robin. But Robin was nowhere to be seen.  
  
"He's buggered off!" said Fred's head.  
  
"So he has, he's scampered!" said Toad's head.  
  
X  
  
Robin was skipping away from danger as fast as his horse could carry him. Behind him, his minstrels broke into song to sing about his latest escapade.  
  
"Brave Sir Robin ran away!"  
  
"I didn't" he said.  
  
"Bravely ran away, away!"  
  
"I never!"  
  
"When danger reared it's ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled, Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, and gallantly he chickened out,"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Bravely taking to his feet, he beat a very brave retreat, bravest of the brave, brave Sir Robin!"  
  
"All lies!"  
  
X  
  
Before the Brotherhood could chase after Robin, the vortex appeared over their heads once more and sucked them in. When the mutants emerged, they were back in the boarding house, and all three had their bodies back.  
  
"Man, I'm glad that's over with!" Toad said.  
  
"Fred, no offense but I am never sleeping in the same room with you again," said Lance, and walked out of the room.  
  
Just then, Wanda walked in, her hair and clothes burnt to a crisp.  
  
"Wanda!" Toad shouted in alarm. "What happened to you?"  
  
Wanda collapsed into the nearest chair. "I am going to kill Jean Grey, if it's the last thing I do!" she wheezed.  
  
X  
  
Next time: Kurt finds out what 'chaste' really means. (assuming this scene doesn't get cut) 


	10. The Tail of Sir Galahad Rrated

Many miles away, Kurt struggled through a terrible storm. The wind buffeted him and the rain drenched his fur, soaking him to the bone. As he ran, he caught his arm on a thick tree branch. The branch tore through his tunic and left a cut on his arm.  
  
"Ah!" Kurt shouted in pain, but pressed on. After several more minutes, he saw a strange light in the sky.  
  
"What is that?" he asked. As he looked closer, he saw that the light looked almost like a grail.  
  
"It can't be!" he said, and looked closer. The grail grew brighter and Kurt thought he could hear angels singing in the distance. He felt his resolve grow, and forgetful of Scott's earlier warning, he made his way towards the castle.  
  
After nearly twenty minutes of dodging hail and falling trees, Kurt arrived at the gates of the castle. Shivering, he pounded on the door with all his might.  
  
"Open the door!" he shouted. There was no response.  
  
Come on, let me in! Kurt pleaded in his mind, and banged on the door again. "Open the door! In the name of King Arthur, open the door!"  
  
As if the phrase "King Arthur" were magic words, there was a loud click, and the door unlocked and slowly swung open. Kurt saw three girls in thin, revealing gowns standing in the doorway. "Hello!" they said.  
  
"Kitty?" Kurt exclaimed, as he looked at the girl in the middle.  
  
"No, my name is Zoot," said the girl. "Welcome, good sir knight, to the Castle Anthrax!"  
  
"The Castle Anthrax?" Kurt asked.  
  
Zoot nodded regretfully. "Yes. It's not a very good name, is it? Oh, but we are nice, and we shall attend to your every, every need!"  
  
"You are the keepers of the Holy Grail?" asked Kurt.  
  
"The what?" asked Zoot.  
  
"The Grail! It is here," said Kurt.  
  
"Oh, but you are tired, and you must rest a while!" said Zoot. "Midget! Crepper!" she called.  
  
Two girls, who looked very much like Rahne and Jubilee, appeared behind Zoot.  
  
"Yes, O Zoot?" they asked.  
  
"Prepare a bed for our gust," she ordered.  
  
"Oh, thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" the girls said gleefully.  
  
"Away, away, varletesses!" Zoot said, shooing them away. She turned back to Kurt. "The beds here are warm and soft, and very, very big,"  
  
"Well, look, I really,"  
  
"What is your name, good sir knight?" Zoot asked.  
  
"Sir Galahad," Kurt said. Zoot leaned forward towards him, her dress shifting to show quite a bit of skin. Kurt looked away nervously. "Er, the Chaste," he added, suddenly remembering his moniker.  
  
"Mine is Zoot. Just Zoot," Zoot said. "Oh, but come!" she said, taking his hand and leading him upstairs.  
  
"Look, please!" Kurt protested as they walked up the staircase. "In God's name, show me the Grail!"  
  
"Oh, you have suffered much! You are delirious!" Zoot said.  
  
"No, look, I have seen it! It is here, in this,"  
  
"Sir Galahad!" Zoot interrupted him as they arrived at a door at the top of the stairs. "You would not be so ungallant as to refuse our hospitality, would you?"  
  
"Well, I, um," Kurt said, unsure if he should continue with where this seemed to be leading.  
  
Zoot opened the door and led Kurt through it. "Oh, I am afraid our life must seem very dull and quiet compared to yours. We are but eight score young blondes and brunettes, all between sixteen and nineteen-and-a-half, cut off in this castle with no one to protect us. Oooh. It is a lonely life: bathing, dressing, undressing, making exciting underwear. We are just not used to handsome knights," she said.  
  
Kurt began to feel himself getting slightly aroused as Zoot led him over to the bed.  
  
"Come, come. You may lie here," Zoot said. Kurt lay down on the bed and Zoot leaned closer to him.  
  
"Oh, but you are wounded!" she exclaimed, seeing the gash in his arm.  
  
"No, no, it's nothing, really," Kurt said.  
  
Zoot wouldn't hear it. "Oh, you must see the doctors immediately! Please, lie down!" She turned around and clapped her hands.  
  
Two girls walked into the room. Their dresses were just as revealing as Zoot's.  
  
"They're doctors?" Kurt asked, eying the copious amounts of skin standing above him.  
  
"Well, they've had basic medical training, yes," said Zoot.  
  
"But,"  
  
"Come, you must try and rest!" said Zoot. "Dr. Piglet, Dr. Winston, practice your art," she said, and stepped back as the other two girls walked over to Kurt's bed. Kurt saw that one of them looked like Tabby, while the second looked quite a bit like Rogue.  
  
"Try and relax," said one of the girls, and began massaging Kurt's shoulders.  
  
"Are you sure that's absolutely necessary?" he asked.  
  
"We must examine you," said the other, beginning to unbuckle his armor.  
  
Kurt settled back and tried to relax as the doctors began rubbing his chest. This isn't so bad, he thought. I guess it wouldn't hurt to relax and rest here for a little while. Suddenly, he felt one of the girls reach between his legs.  
  
"There's nothing wrong with that!" he said, quickly sitting up and moving the girl's hand away from his groin.  
  
"Please, we are doctors," said one of the girls.  
  
"No, this cannot be!" said Kurt, starting to realize what 'chaste' meant. He jumped out of his bed, remembering the promises he and Amanda had made to each other. "I am sworn to chastity!" he said. But oh, I wish I weren't!, he thought to himself.  
  
"Back to your bed at once!" ordered one of the doctors.  
  
"Torment me no longer, I have seen the Grail!" Kurt said, trying to focus on his mission.  
  
"There's no grail here!" said the second doctor.  
  
Kurt ignored them and dashed out of the room. "I have seen it, I have seen it!" he shouted as he dashed through the halls and turned into a large room. "I have seen, oh!" he said, as he realized where he was.  
  
"Hello!" called the several dozen girls staring back at him, all in varying states of undress. They walked up to Kurt and began pawing at him.  
  
"Hello," each girl whispered sultrily in his ear as they passed by.  
  
Kurt felt himself getting very excited at all the half-naked girls milling around him. He wanted so badly to return their gestures, but his vows had prevented him.  
  
Stupid chastity vows!, he cursed under his breath. Then, he saw Zoot again. Only this time, Zoot looked like Amanda instead of Kitty. She was naked from the waist up, and barely dressed from below. The candlelight glinted off her eyes as she walked up to him.  
  
"Amanda! How did you get here?" Kurt gasped, his gaping eyes fixed on her bare breasts. "No, wait, in this universe, you're probably Zoot again, aren't you?"  
  
"No, I am Zoot's identical twin sister, Dingo," the girl said, ignoring Kurt's gaze.  
  
"Oh. I, I'm sorry, excuse me," Kurt stammered, still fixated on the girl's cleavage. He had no idea how his girlfriend had gotten trapped in this universe, but right now, he didn't much care. After several seconds, he managed to pull his eyes away from Dingo's breasts to remember the real reason he had come here. He started to walk past her, resolving to stop back in after he had found the Grail.  
  
"Where are you going?" she asked.  
  
"I seek the Grail! I have seen it, here in this castle!" Kurt said.  
  
Dingo looked puzzled, and then suddenly gritted her teeth. "Oh no!" she said. "No! Bad, bad Zoot!"  
  
"What, what is it?" Kurt asked.  
  
"Oh, wicked, bad, naughty Zoot!" Dingo said. "She has been setting alight our beacon, which I've just remembered is Grail-shaped. It's not the first time we've had this problem," she explained.  
  
"It's not the real Grail?" Kurt asked, disappointed.  
  
"Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil Zoot! She is a bad person and must pay the penalty!" Dingo cried. Then a different, curious sort of look came over her face. "Do you think this scene should have been cut?" she asked aloud, to nobody in particular. "We were worried when the boys were writing it, but now we're glad! It's much better than some of the other scenes, I think,"  
  
Kurt had no idea who the girl Amanda claimed to be was talking to and he didn't much care. Right now, he was wondering if she would be interesting in renegotiating their vows.  
  
Just then, several people walked into the room, including Dennis and the three-headed knight.  
  
"At least ours was better visually," said Toad's head, before vanishing again.  
  
"Well, at least ours was committed," said Dennis. "It wasn't just a string of stupid jokes,"  
  
"Get on with it!" shouted an old man.  
  
"Yes, get on with it!" said a wizard on the other side of the room.  
  
"Yes, get on with it!" shouted Lancelot and an army of knights from outside.  
  
"Oh, I am enjoying this scene!" Dingo said delightedly, oblivious to all the complaints.  
  
Xavier's head appeared in the middle of the room. "Get on with it!" he said angrily, and then vanished abruptly.  
  
Dingo sighed and resumed her invective against her twin. "Oh, wicked, wicked Zoot! Oh, she is a naughty person, and must pay the penalty. And here in Castle Anthrax, we have but one punishment for setting light to the Grail-shaped beacon. You must tie her down on a bed and spank her!"  
  
"A spanking! A spanking!" shouted the rest of the girls eagerly.  
  
"You must spank her well," Dingo continued. "And after you have spanked her, you may deal with her as you like. And then, spank me,"  
  
"And spank me," said a second girl.  
  
"And me," added a third.  
  
"And me!" said a fourth.  
  
"Yes, yes, you must give us all a good spanking!"  
  
"A spanking! A spanking! There's going to be a spanking tonight!"  
  
"Really?" Kurt asked eagerly, as he found himself forgetting about both the Grail and his vows as the bevy of voluptuous women grew more excited around him. For him, this was a dream come true.  
  
"And after the spanking, the oral sex!" Dingo continued.  
  
The girls all gasped, and then broke out into peals of gleeful laughter "The oral sex! The oral sex!" they shouted.  
  
That's it, screw the Grail!, Kurt thought. "Well, I suppose I could stay a bit longer," he said, clasping Dingo's right hand with his own and one of her breasts with the other. He leaned forward and began kissing her heavily.  
  
Just then, Lancelot burst in with several knights behind him.  
  
"Sir Galahad!" Lancelot shouted.  
  
"Oh, hello," Kurt said, his tongue still buried deep in Dingo's mouth. He barely noticed his fellow knight as he began fondling Dingo's breast.  
  
"Quick!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Quick!" Lancelot shouted louder, and grabbed Kurt by the shoulder and pulled him away from Dingo.  
  
"Why?" Kurt protested, extremely disappointed.  
  
"You are in great peril!"  
  
"No he isn't!" said Dingo.  
  
"Silence, foul temptress!" Lancelot shouted.  
  
"You know, she's got a point," Kurt said.  
  
"Come on, we will cover your escape!" Lancelot said and started to drag Kurt out of the room as the other knights cleared a path.  
  
"Look, I'm fine!" Kurt said, trying to break out of Lancelot's grasp,  
  
"Come on!" said Lancelot, desperately trying to restrain him.  
  
"Sir Galahad!" shouted the girls.  
  
"No!" Kurt protested. "I can tackle this lot single-handed!"  
  
"Yes, let him tackle us single-handed!" said Dingo.  
  
"Yes, let him tackle us single-handed!" cried the girls.  
  
"No, Sir Galahad! Come on!" Lancelot said.  
  
"No, really! Honestly, I can cope! I can handle this lot easily!" Kurt said.  
  
"Oh yes, let him handle us easily!" said Dingo.  
  
"Yes, let him handle us easily!" cried the girls. A few of the more excitable ones began to swarm around Kurt and Lancelot.  
  
Lancelot was insistent. "No! Quick, quick!" he shouted, and pushed the girls away.  
  
"Please, I can defeat them! There's only a hundred and fifty of them!" Kurt cried as Lancelot dragged him out of the room and down the stairs.  
  
"Yes, yes, he will beat us easily!" said Dingo and the other girls, chasing after Kurt and Lancelot. "We haven't a chance! He will beat us easily!"  
  
Lancelot ignored the girls and pulled Kurt outside and slammed the door.  
  
"Oh, shit!" Dingo exclaimed, and grasped for a blanket to cover up with as she walked glumly back upstairs.  
  
X  
  
Back outside, Kurt glared at Lancelot. The storm had stopped, but Kurt's mood was just as foul as Lancelot explained his actions.  
  
"We were in the nick of time, you were in great peril!" he said.  
  
"I don't think I was," Kurt argued.  
  
"Yes you were, you were in terrible peril!"  
  
"Look, let me go back in there and face the peril," Kurt said bravely, and turned back to the castle.  
  
Lancelot grabbed his arm. "No, no, it's too perilous," he said.  
  
"Look, it's my duty as a knight to sample as much peril as I can," Kurt said.  
  
"No, we've got to find the Holy Grail. Come on!" Lancelot said quickly.  
  
"Oh, let me have just a little bit of peril?" Kurt pleaded, annoyed that Lancelot always got to have all the fun and he didn't.  
  
"No. It's unhealthy," Lancelot said and began walking off.  
  
Kurt looked back forlornly at the castle. "I'll bet he's gay," he muttered, and then glumly trudged off after Lancelot.  
  
X 


	11. My Dinner with Magneto

In the fortress, Xavier watched in abject horror as Kurt succumbed to the temptations of the Python Dimension. Magneto's reactions were polar opposite: he was laughing with glee as he watched Kurt and Dingo groping each other. In the kitchen, Mystique was getting more ice for her drink and had no idea about what was transpiring.  
  
"How could you do this, Eric?" Xavier asked Magneto in shock. "I had such high hopes for the boy, and to corrupt him like this,"  
  
"Oh, loosen up, Charles!" said Xavier. "What chance did he have of actually making it with that girl in this dimension, might I ask?"  
  
"You would know if you really knew them," Xavier said. "Their relationship was the perfect example of how humans and mutants can learn to trust each other,"  
  
"Yes, yes, there you go again," said Magneto, rolling his eyes as Xavier geared up for another one of his long-winded monologues. "Always going on about mutants and humans learning to co-exist. It's become really quite stale by now, you know. Well, if it's any comfort to you, she won't have any idea about what's been happening to her if she gets out of there,"  
  
Xavier did not look very persuaded. "Here, I know what will cheer you up," Magneto offered, trying to placate him. "I'll order us a pizza and we can watch the rest of the adventure. What do you have on yours?"  
  
"Well, since you're buying, let's go Hawaiian style," Xavier said. "Ham, almonds, and pineapple,"  
  
"Why Charles!" Magneto said, placing a hand on his chest in fake amazement. "I never knew you liked to live so dangerously!"  
  
"My exotic tastes when it comes to pizza isn't the only thing about me that would surprise you," Xavier said.  
  
"Chares Xavier, actually becoming 'hip'," said Magneto. "What is this world coming to?"  
  
"What did I miss?" Mystique asked, returning with her drink.  
  
"Well, to give you the short version," Magneto said. "Sir Launcelot had saved Sir Galahad from almost certain temptation, but they were still no nearer the Grail. Meanwhile, King Arthur and Sir Bedevere, not more than a swallow's flight away, had discovered something. Oh, that's an unladen swallow's flight, obviously. I mean, they were more than two laden swallows' flights away-- four, really, if they had a coconut on a line between them. I mean, if the birds were walking and dragging--,"  
  
"Oh, get on with it already!" said Mystique.  
  
"Oh, anyway. On to scene twenty-four, which is a smashing scene with  
  
some lovely acting, in which Arthur discovers a vital clue, and in which  
  
there aren't any swallows, although I think you can hear a starling,"  
  
Mystique slapped Magneto on the head to get him to shut up.  
  
"Ouch!" he shouted. "Right, I'll just go order that pizza, then," he muttered, and walked out of the room. Mystique followed to make sure he got her order right. Magneto was always forgetting that she was allergic to pepperoni, and the last time she had eaten pizza she had a two-week outbreak of hives.  
  
He stopped at the exit, where Gambit, Sabertooth, and Pyro were sitting at one of the small tables, sipping drinks and playing cards. Naturally, Remy was beating his fellow Acolytes despite being more drunk then both of them put together.  
  
"Gentlemen, we're going to order pizza," said Magneto. "Do us a favor and keep an eye on Xavier, and make sure he doesn't tamper with anything,"  
  
"What's in it for us?" Pyro asked.  
  
"Other than your continued existence?" Magneto asked. "Oh alright, do a good job and we'll save you a slice,"  
  
"Deal," said Sabertooth.  
  
"Right, we'll be back in a bit," Magneto said. "Also, make sure Xavier doesn't leave the room until I come back and get him,"  
  
"Not to leave the room, even if you come and get him," said Pyro, slurring his speech a little.  
  
Remy hiccupped.  
  
"No, no," said Magneto. "Until I come and get him,"  
  
"Until you come and get him, we're not to enter the room," said Sabertooth.  
  
"No, no, no!" said Magneto. "You stay in the room, and make sure he doesn't leave,"  
  
"And you'll come and get him?" Pyro asked. Next to him, Remy hiccupped again.  
  
"Right," said Magneto.  
  
"We don't need to do anything, apart from just stop him entering the room," Pyro said.  
  
"No, leaving the room," Magneto said. Is it the alcohol or they always that stupid, he wondered to himself.  
  
"Leaving the room, right, yes," said Sabertooth.  
  
"All right?" Magneto asked.  
  
"Sure, sure," said Sabertooth.  
  
Finally, thought Magneto, and turned to leave.  
  
"Oh!" said Sabertooth, suddenly remembering something. "If, um, if, if, umm," he said, trying to get the words out past his drunken tongue.  
  
"Yes, what is it?" Magneto asked.  
  
"Oh, I, um," Sabertooth continued to stumble.  
  
Magneto rolled his eyes. "Look, it's really quite simple," he said. "You just stay here, and make sure he doesn't leave the room, alright?"  
  
The only response was Remy hiccupping again.  
  
"Oh, I remember now!" Sabertooth said. "Can he leave the room with us?"  
  
"No!" said Magneto. "You just keep him in here, and make sure he,"  
  
"Oh, sure, we'll keep him in here, obviously," Pyro interrupted. "But if he had to leave and we were with him,"  
  
"No, no, no, and no!" Magneto said angrily, making a note never to let any of his mutants touch another drop of beer as long as they lived. It was clearly confusing their already-addled brains to the point where they would probably forget that they were alive unless they were reminded. "Just keep him in here," he said, walking them through it again.  
  
"Until you, or anyone else," said Sabertooth.  
  
"No, not anyone else. Just me,"  
  
"Just you,"  
  
"Get back,"  
  
"Get back," Pyro said. Remy hiccupped again.  
  
"Got it now?" Magneto asked.  
  
"Right," said Sabertooth. "We'll stay here until you get back,"  
  
"And, uh, make sure he doesn't leave," Magneto said, reminding him of the second part of his instructions.  
  
"Who, the Professor?" asked Pyro.  
  
"Yes. Make sure he doesn't leave," Magneto said, in a tone of voice usually reserved for dealing with very small children.  
  
"Oh, yeah, of course!" said Pyro. "I thought you meant him," he said, pointing at Remy, who hiccupped again. "Seemed a bit daft having to guard him when he's a guard,"  
  
"Ok, is everything clear now?" Magneto asked.  
  
"Oh, quite clear, no problems," said Pyro.  
  
"Right," Magneto said, and walked through the doorway. The Acolytes stood up to follow him.  
  
"Where are you going?" Magneto asked.  
  
"We're coming with you," said Sabertooth.  
  
Magneto swore under his breath. When I get back, I am getting new lackeys, he thought to himself. "No. I want you to stay here, and make sure he doesn't leave," he said very slowly, pointing to Xavier for extra emphasis.  
  
Remy hiccupped again.  
  
"Oh, go get a glass of water or something!" Magneto said, exasperated.  
  
"Why do you keep those idiots around anyway?" Mystique asked him as they walked out of the theatre.  
  
"Because they're the only evil mutants that answered any of the Help Wanted ads I put up," Magneto said.  
  
X  
  
As Xavier watched Magneto banter back and forth with his Acolytes, his mind was racing like clockwork, trying to come up with a plan. While Magneto had been watching the X-Men on his screen, Xavier had been discreetly studying Magneto's Evil Chaos Inducer ©, trying to gleam a sense of how it worked.  
  
The Acolytes watched Xavier for a couple minutes, and then went back to their card game. Remy was nearly catatonic as Pyro dealt the cards out.  
  
Now's my chance, Xavier thought, and wheeled over to the giant machine. He began adjusting the mechanism, trying to recalibrate it to bring the X- Men back from their extra-dimensional prison. He looked up to see the Acolytes watching him with acute interest, knowing grins on their faces.  
  
Xavier looked at them nervously, waiting for them to come over to him, but they just sat there, grinning like idiots. Slowly, Xavier began adjusting the machine again, keeping his eyes on theirs.  
  
Just then, Magneto walked into the room. "Charles, the pizza's here!" Magneto said, carrying a pizza box in his hand. "Time for, what are you doing?" he shouted as he saw Xavier at the controls of the machine.  
  
"Figures," Magneto said. "I leave you alone for five minutes and you try to ruin my evil plans. And you!" he roared, turning on the Acolytes. "I told you to keep an eye on him!"  
  
"But you never said anything about not letting him touch the machine!" Sabertooth protested.  
  
"You just said not to let him leave the room!" Pyro said.  
  
"Aagh!" Magneto shouted, clenching his fists open and closed repeatedly. "This dimension isn't big enough for such stupidity!" he shouted. "But don't worry, I know just the place you three can fit in!"  
  
With that, he walked over to the Evil Chaos Inducer ©, fired it up, and targeted the Acolytes. "You'll make a perfect addition to all that zaniness going on in there," Magneto said, and opened the vortex to the Python Dimension. The Acolytes were quickly sucked inside, and the vortex closed.  
  
"Shall we?" Magneto asked Xavier as he brought the pizza box over to their seats. Xavier grudgingly wheeled over and took a slice.  
  
"I must say, Charles," Magneto said. "You have exquisite tastes in pizza, even if you're a complete square in just about every other department,"  
  
"Say, Eric," Xavier said, coming up with another plan. "How would a little wager interest you?" he asked.  
  
"Ah, so now you're the sporting type, eh?" Magneto asked. "Alright, what sort of wager did you have in mind?"  
  
"When Scott and the others find the Grail and get out of that dimension, you destroy your machines and give up all your evil schemes for, oh, let's say, six months?" he offered.  
  
Magneto scoffed. "As if there's any chance of them making it back. Very well, I accept!" he said.  
  
"Aren't you going to ask what happens if they don't make it out?" Xavier asked cautiously.  
  
"Why bother?" Magneto asked. "I'm confident that they'll be stuck in there for a very, very long time. Tell you what, I'll make up my terms later on,"  
  
"Fine," said Xavier, beginning to think that this might not have been such a good idea after all. The mutants turned back to the screen to watch the action.  
  
X 


	12. The Knights Who Said Too Much

Scott and Bedevire had searched the countryside for four days after splitting up from his other knights, and had found absolutely nothing. To make things worse, the only advice Bedevire was giving him was silly random tidbits of useless trivia, and scientific theories so bizarre that they sounded like they had been written by a mad scientist with dyslexia. Scott was hoping that they could get out of this dimension soon, so that Jean could go back to being her slightly-less-irritating smug self.  
  
"Look, Bedevire, all this is really quite fascinating," Scott said, interrupting Bedevire's latest discursion on water-powered dog-grooming machines. "Do you know anything that could actually help us find the Grail at some point in THIS lifetime?"  
  
"As a matter of fact, I do, sire!" Bedevire said. "I know a man who lives very close by here who is well-learned in ancient artifacts. If anybody can help us find the Holy Grail, he can,"  
  
"Great!" Scott said, glad that Bedevire was finally being useful for a change. "Lead the way,"  
  
X  
  
A short time later, Scott and Bedevire sat huddled inside a small tent. Bedevire had led them to an old man who, judging by the eclectic collection of items inside the tent, seemed about as sane as the Mad Hatter on LSD. So far, the man had answered each of Scott's questions with riotous laughter, and had only told them a couple things that seemed to be of any use in between.  
  
"And this enchanter of whom you speak, he has seen the Grail?" Scott asked him.  
  
The old man said nothing, but continued to laugh like a madman.  
  
Bedevire sure knew some strange people, Scott thought, and asked his question again.  
  
"Where does he live? Old man, where does he live?" he asked frantically, trying to bring the man back to reality.  
  
The old man stopped laughing. "He knows a cave, a cave which no man has entered," he said, very seriously.  
  
"And the Grail, the Grail is there?" Scott asked hopefully.  
  
"There is much danger!" the man continued. "For beyond the cave lies the Gorge of Eternal Peril, which no man has ever crossed!"  
  
"But the Grail!" Scott said, hoping the old man would get to the point soon. "Where is the Grail?"  
  
"Seek ye, the Bridge of Death!" instructed the man.  
  
"The Bridge of Death, which leads to the Grail?" Scott asked, sensing they were close to an answer.  
  
The old man threw back his head and laughed insanely, and suddenly the tent around Scott and Bedevire vanished to thin air. They found themselves alone with their squires in the midst of a dark, foggy forest.  
  
"Some friend of yours! Now where are we?" Scott asked.  
  
"I don't know, milord," Bedevire said. "I don't recognize this place at all,"  
  
"Well we'd better get out of here quick," Scott said. "I've got a bad feeling about this place,"  
  
They decided to head north, and after finding some moss on the side of the trees to guide them, started to make their way through the forest. As they ventured on, Scott grew more and more nervous, and had a distinct feeling they were being followed.  
  
Around them, several figures were moving around in the fog. Scott could make out shadows darting in and out of the trees. His heartbeat quickened and his pulse raced as he counted 6, now 10, and now 20 of the shapes. His breath caught in his throat as the shapes began to close in on them. Suddenly, the fog lifted and a long shadow fell across the path.  
  
Terrified, he looked up to see a very tall knight towering above him. The knight was twice as tall as any man Scott had ever seen, and had deer antlers growing out of the sides of his helmet. Several other normal-sized knights stepped out of the bushes and stood next to the tall one.  
  
"Ni!" shouted the tall knight. "Ni! Ni! Ni!" shouted the other knights.  
  
"Who are you?" Scott asked, very frightened.  
  
"We are the Knights Who Say. Ni!" the tall knight exclaimed. "Ni!" shouted one of the other knights.  
  
"No, not the Knights Who Say Ni!" Scott said. Even though he had absolutely no idea who they were, they still struck fear into his heart.  
  
"The same!" shouted the tall knight.  
  
Scott was shaking in his boots as he looked into the face of the knight, looking over his pointed nose, his stiff chin, his beard, his silver hair.  
  
Silver hair? Scott thought. Oh, not him again!  
  
Once again, Pietro was making an appearance in the role of Scott's chief tormenter.  
  
"Who are they?" Bedevire asked.  
  
"I don't know!" Scott said frantically. "Why do you think I know everything just because I'm a king? I thought you were the smart one!"  
  
"Of course I am!" Bedevire said. "It's just that, er, we're in a very remote kingdom. A place where few people have ever journeyed to. Naturally, I can't be expected to know every minute detail about the region,"  
  
"I thought you just said you didn't know where we were!"  
  
"Well, um, you see," Bedevire stammered, her veneer of wisdom shattered.  
  
"Oh, some help you're turning out to be!" Scott said, throwing up his hands. "Between this and that stupid rabbit idea, it's a wonder we haven't been mashed to tiny bits by now!"  
  
"Enough!" Pietro shouted, interrupting them. "The Knights of Ni demand a sacrifice!"  
  
Scott took a deep breath, hoping that Pietro wouldn't be a jerk for once in his life. "Knights of Ni, we are but simple travelers who seek the enchanter who lives beyond these woods," he said.  
  
No such luck. "Ni!" Pietro shouted. The other knights joined in. "Ni! Ni! Ni!"  
  
Scott screamed and covered his ears at the verbal onslaught. Next to him, Bedevire writhed and twitched in pain.  
  
Finally, the knights let up. "We shall say 'Ni!' again to you if you do not appease us!" the tall knight threatened.  
  
"Well, what do you want?" Scott asked.  
  
"We want," Pietro said, and then paused for dramatic emphasis. "A shrubbery!"  
  
Somewhere, an orchestra played a dramatic chord.  
  
"A what?" Scott asked, completely befuddled at this request.  
  
The knights grew incensed. "Ni!" they began shouting.  
  
"Ah! Ah! Alright, alright! Please, no more!" Scott pleaded. "We will find you a shrubbery!"  
  
"You must bring us a shrubbery, or you will never pass through this wood alive!"  
  
Oh Knights of Ni, you are just and fair!" Scott said. "We will return with a shrubbery,"  
  
"One that looks nice," Pietro said.  
  
"Of course,"  
  
"And not too expensive,"  
  
"Yes,"  
  
"Now, go!" Pietro said, and turned his back on Scott. He and the other knights vanished into the forest again, leaving Scott and Bedevire by themselves.  
  
"A shrubbery?" Scott asked. "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life! Where are we going to find a shrubbery in this forest, wherever it is?"  
  
"Fear not, my liege," Bedevire said. "There is a village a few days away from this forest. I am certain that we can find someone there who can sell us a shrubbery,"  
  
"You'd better be right about this," Scott said. "Or I'll, well, I'm not sure what I'll do to you but you can bet it'll be unpleasant,"  
  
X  
  
A few days later, Scott and Bedevire emerged from the forest and came to a town. They walked through the streets, looking for somebody who might sell them a shrubbery.  
  
After several minutes of fruitless searching, they came across an old woman, beating a cat against a pole.  
  
"Let's ask her, my liege," Bedevire suggested. "She looks like she'll be able to help us,"  
  
"Why do you say that?" he asked. "And why is she beating that cat like that?"  
  
"Well, I just thought that she might, since she's the only person we've seen so far," Bedevire said. "As for the cat, I'd imagine she's getting ready to cook it,"  
  
Scott felt his stomach churn at the thought of anybody eating a cat. "Right, well, let's just ask her about the shrubbery, then," he said and turned to the old woman.  
  
"Old crone!" Scott called. "Is there anywhere in this town where we could buy a shrubbery?"  
  
At the word 'shrubbery', another dramatic chord filled the air. Scott looked around, trying to find the orchestra that kept playing the chords.  
  
"Who sent you?" the woman asked suspiciously.  
  
"The Knights of Ni," Scott said.  
  
"Agh! Never!" growled the woman. "We have no shrubberies here,"  
  
Scott decided to use the same tactics that the Knights of Ni had used on him. After all, it had worked well enough for them.  
  
"If you do not tell us where we can find a shrubbery," he threatened. "My friend and I will say, we will say. Ni!"  
  
"Agh! Do your worst!" said the woman.  
  
"Very well! If you will not assist us voluntarily," Scott said and gave the woman a chance to submit.  
  
"No! No shrubberies!" she said.  
  
"Right!" Scott said. "Ni!"  
  
"Nu!" Bedevire shouted.  
  
The woman simply coughed and looked at them oddly.  
  
"No, that's not it, it's 'ni!'" Scott told Bedevire.  
  
"Nu!" Bedevire said again.  
  
"No, you're not doing it right," Scott said. "It's 'ni!' 'Ni!'"  
  
"Ni!" Bedevire said, finally getting the hang of it.  
  
"Right, that's it!" Scott said, and they turned back to the old woman. "Ni!" they shouted in unison.  
  
Said properly, the word had an instant effect. The woman clutched her hands to the sides of her head and began moaning in agony.  
  
Scott and Bedevire did not give the woman any time to recover. "Ni! Ni!" they continued to shout.  
  
The woman dropped to her knees and began clawing and scratching her face.  
  
Scott and Bedevire kept up the assault, not noticing the man in the cart that had pulled up behind him.  
  
"Here!" called the man, in a very drunken voice. "Are you saying 'ni!' to that old woman?" he asked them.  
  
Scott turned to see that the man looked just like Remy. "Um, yes," he admitted. Wait, is that Gambit?, he wondered.  
  
"Oh, what sad times this is when passing ruffians can see 'ni!' at will to old ladies!" the man exclaimed.  
  
First the Brotherhood, now Magneto's Acolytes, thought Scott. This just keeps getting worse and worse.  
  
"There is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred," the man slurred. "Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period of history,"  
  
"Did you say shrubberies?" Scott asked him, his eyes lighting up hopefully behind his visor.  
  
"Yes. I am a shrubber. My name is Roger the Shrubber. I arrange, design, and sell shrubberies," Roger said.  
  
"Ni!" Bedevire shouted.  
  
"No, no!" Scott said, quickly placing his hand over her mouth before she scared the man away. After a few minutes of haggling, they had their shrubbery, and set back out to take it to the Knights of Ni.  
  
X 


	13. Lancelot's Tall and Very Long Tale

Kurt and Lancelot rode together after leaving the Castle Anthrax. Kurt was still very depressed at having come so close to finally getting a chance with Amanda, only to have it torn from his grasp. To make things worse, Lancelot was constantly boasting about how he had encountered considerable peril on his own journeys while Kurt hadn't gotten to experience any peril at all, thanks to him of course.  
  
As they made camp for the evening, Lancelot threw out more tall tales as he chopped wood for the fire.  
  
"Do you have to keep going on about how many people you killed back in that pub fight?" he asked.  
  
"Oh, come off it, Galahad," Lancelot said, realizing why Kurt was so depressed. "Sure, she was cute, but wenches like that are a dime a dozen in these parts," he said. "Besides, you'll have plenty of time to find a proper wife after we find the Grail,"  
  
Kurt felt his hackles rise at Lancelot's suggestion that Amanda was a wench. I hope Scott's not having this much trouble with Jean, he thought glumly to himself.  
  
"Here, I've got a story that's sure to cheer you up," Lancelot said. "I promise, this is a new one,"  
  
"That's what you said the last six times," Kurt grumbled.  
  
"Well this one IS new," Lancelot said. "It starts not too long ago, in a castle not too far away,"  
  
"Where have I heard THAT before?" Kurt asked. This is going to be a long night, he thought forlornly as Lancelot began his tale.  
  
X  
  
The Tale of Sir Lancelot  
  
Today was a special day, and not just because it was Family Night at the Camelot Diner again. Today was the wedding day of Prince Herbert, and people were coming from far and wide to witness the event.  
  
Up in the tower of Swamp Castle, the king was helping his son get ready for his big day, and was telling him about what he could expect once he was married. The king of Swamp Castle was a very unique man, easily recognizable in a crowd. He was eight feet tall and had claws for hands. Some people said that he was descended from one of the lion-gods of Egypt.  
  
"One day, lad, all this will be yours!" said the king, sweeping his hand across the room in a grand gesture.  
  
"What, the curtains?" asked his son, Herbert. Herbert was a short, skinny boy with flame-red hair, who looked as if a gentle breeze would break him in half.  
  
"No, not the curtains, lad, all that you can see!" exclaimed Sabertooth the king. "Everything, stretched out across the hills and valleys of this land! That'll be your kingdom, lad,"  
  
"But mother," Pyro the prince said weakly.  
  
"Father, father, lad," Sabertooth corrected him. The lad was always getting his genders mixed up for some reason. Sabertooth's doctors had told him that the boy had a genetic affliction, whatever that meant.  
  
"But father, I don't want any of that!" Pyro said.  
  
Sabertooth recoiled at this affront. How could his son not appreciate what he would be inheriting? He decided to remind him about how bad things had been for them in the past.  
  
"Listen, lad," he said. "I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started, all our land was swamp. Other kings said it was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em!" he bragged. "Of course, it sank into the swamp, so I built a second one. That one sank into the swamp, so I built a third one! That one burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp," he said, recalling the time that the horrid Hummingbird of Glasgow had flown through their castle and tipped over an oil lamp that had started the tragic conflagration.  
  
"But the fourth one stayed up!" he finished proudly. "And that's what you're gonna get, lad. The strongest castle in these islands!"  
  
"But I don't want any of that," Pyro said. "I'd rather,"  
  
"Rather what?"  
  
"I'd rather just, sing!" Pyro said. In the next room, a choir of bridesmaids began tuning up for a romantic ballad.  
  
"Stop that, stop that!" Sabertooth said, incensed at his son's fondness for singing such girlish tunes. The choir in the next room hushed up at the shouting. "You're not going into a song while I'm here! Now listen, lad. In twenty minutes you're getting married to a girl whose father owns the biggest tracts of land in Britain!"  
  
"But I don't want land!"  
  
"Listen, Alice," Sabertooth began.  
  
"Herbert," Pyro corrected him.  
  
"Herbert, right," Sabertooth said, wondering why he had made such a silly error. He hoped he wasn't coming down with the same gender-confusing affliction his son had. It was bad enough that his own flesh and blood was such a sniveling little wimp.  
  
"Look, we live in a bloody swamp. We need all the land we can get!" he said, trying to get his son to come round to his way of thinking.  
  
"But I don't like her!" Pyro complained.  
  
"Don't like her?" Sabertooth asked, completely flabbergasted. "What's wrong with her? She's beautiful, she's rich, she's got huge," he said, holding out his hands in front of his chest, palms open. "Huge, er, tracts of land," he said, realizing his gesture and not wanting his son to get too enthusiastic about marriage. Heaven help the world if the boy actually managed to breed.  
  
"I know," Pyro said. "But I want the girl I marry to have a special. something," he said. The choir of bridesmaids began to sing again.  
  
"Cut that out, cut that out!" Sabertooth snapped. "Look, you're marrying Princess Lucky, so you'd better get used to the idea!" he shouted, and smacked his son for emphasis. Then he walked over to the guards standing at the door, where Remy and Colossus were standing. Colossus had been in his own room drinking vodka when the vortex had sucked him into this dimension, and so far he was chalking the whole experience up to a very bad hangover for the explanation.  
  
X  
  
Sabertooth had hired these guards personally to watch over the prince. They were known for their unique fighting skills. One of them was said to be lethal with the wooden staff, and the second had the most spectacular suit of armor the world had ever seen. There were rumors that he never took it off, not even to go to sleep.  
  
"Guards, make sure the prince doesn't leave the room until I come and get him," he barked.  
  
"Yes, sire," said Remy  
  
"We won't let him out of our sight," Colossus said.  
  
"Good," said Sabertooth. "Er, you don't have any questions?" he asked, a little suspicious. Usually he had to repeat his instructions to the palace guards several times.  
  
"No, sire,' said Remy. "I mean, it's simple enough to understand. You just want us to stay here and make sure he doesn't leave until you come back for him,"  
  
"And you probably don't want us taking him anywhere with us if we had to leave either," said Colossus  
  
"No questions about who you're supposed to be guarding?" Sabertooth asked just to make sure.  
  
"Of course not!" said Remy. "Who else would you want us to guard? Ourselves? How ridiculous would that be?" he asked, and chuckled a bit at the notion.  
  
"Um, right," said Sabertooth, wondering why his other guards couldn't be as smart as these two. "Well, carry on then," he said, and left the room.  
  
Sabertooth did not realize that his son was not as foolish as he appeared. Pyro was actually very clever, but had played dumb his whole life lest anybody suspect how smart he really was and try to kill him. While Sabertooth had been talking with his guards, Pyro discreetly scrawled a plea for help on a piece of paper, attached it to an arrow, and shot it out the window. Then he resumed his guise of the weak simpleton.  
  
"But father!" he called.  
  
"Shut your noise, you, and get that suit on!" Sabertooth said, and walked out of the room.  
  
"Yes, father," Pyro mumbled, suppressing a grin as he began to get dressed. Hopefully, help would soon be on its way.  
  
X  
  
By this time, Lancelot had finished cooking dinner, and they ate while Lancelot told his story.  
  
"So where do you come into all of this?" Kurt asked, sipping a cup full of hot cider.  
  
"Be patient, I'm getting to that," Lancelot said, biting into a leg of lamb. "Now, my squire Concorde and I were riding through the forest, looking for adventure, when we got the prince's note,"  
  
X  
  
Lancelot and his squire Concorde (a girl who went by the name of Amara in her own dimension) had come to a small river, and were carefully hopping over the stones. Lancelot praised the girl, who had claimed to be descended from a royal house, on her agility as she negotiated the river without getting a single drop of water on her clothes.  
  
"Well done, Concorde, you'll make a fine knight someday!" Lancelot said.  
  
"Thank you, sir," she said. "Say, do you see that funny looking bird heading our way?" she asked, pointing at a rapidly approaching shape in the sky.  
  
"Where?" Lancelot asked. "I don't see it. Is it big enough to cook for dinner tonight?"  
  
The 'bird' suddenly hit Concorde in the chest with a loud WHACK! "Uh!" she grunted as she took the full blow of the arrow. "Message for you sir!" she said, pointing at the note wrapped around the arrow, before she collapsed.  
  
"Concorde!" Lancelot cried. "Concorde, speak to me!" he said, grasping the girl by her shoulders. She gasped once, and then went stiff as stone.  
  
Lancelot cursed under his breath at losing such a promising squire, and pulled the note off of the arrow and read it.  
  
"To whoever finds this note: I have been imprisoned by my father, who wishes me to wed against my will. I am in the tall tower of Swamp Castle," Lancelot read.  
  
"At last! A call! A cry of distress!" he exclaimed excitedly. "This could be the sign that leads us to the Holy Grail!" Or a beautiful princess, he thought. Either way he'd probably have a good time.  
  
"Brave, brave Concorde, you shall not have died in vain!" Lancelot said, vowing to make his squire proud of him.  
  
"Uh, I'm not quite dead, sir!" Concorde said, opening her eyes.  
  
"Well, you shall not have been mortally wounded in vain!" Lancelot said, hoping that he could perform one last heroic feat for the girl before she died.  
  
"I. I really think I could pull through, sir," she said.  
  
"Oh, I see," Lancelot said, slightly upset.  
  
"Actually, I think I'm all right to come with you, sir," she said.  
  
"No, no sweet Concorde!" Lancelot said. The last thing he wanted was for her to get a piece of his heroic success. "Stay here! I will send help as soon as I have accomplished a daring and heroic rescue in my own particular. particular," he said, then sighed. He was always forgetting the dramatic vocabulary words that he had learned back in hero school.  
  
"Idiom, sir?" Concorde offered.  
  
"Idiom! Yes, that's it!" Lancelot said, snapping his fingers. "Farewell, sweet Concorde!" he said, and rushed off in the direction of the arrow's flight.  
  
"Um, right," Concorde said, the arrow still in her chest. "I'll just stay here, then, shall I sir?"  
  
X  
  
Inside the town square, the festivities were getting under way. Minstrels sang, jugglers juggled, and merchants passed out wreaths of flowers for all the guests to wear at the wedding. People were talking, drinking, and generally having a pleasant time. Little did they know that an unexpected guest was about to crash the party.  
  
At the main gate, two guards stood keeping watch, flower garlands around their necks. One of them squinted as he saw a shape appear several yards away. It looked like a man.  
  
Hmm, thought the guard. Must be a latecomer. He made no move to sound the alarm.  
  
As he looked closer, he saw that the man appeared to be running in place. That's a bit odd, the guard thought. He's running so hard that he should be here by.  
  
"Aagh!" groaned the guard as Lancelot impaled him with his claws. The second guard raised his spear but Lancelot sliced it in half, then slashed the guard's throat and stormed inside, yelling and screaming like a banshee.  
  
Guests scattered through the streets as Lancelot ran back and forth, slicing and slashing at everything that moved. The princess, who despite her bovine appearance looked quite a bit like Rogue, and the bridesmaids (Rahne, Jubilee, and Kitty) ran for their lives as Lancelot approached them, but the princess was not fast enough to escape. Lancelot caught up with her and kicked her to the ground before running off in search of his quarry.  
  
Lancelot made his way up the stairs of the castle, dispatching guards left and right. Most of them didn't even see him coming, but that didn't stop him from driving his claws into their flesh. Lancelot felt his heart beat at a tremendous rate and heard the blood rushing through his ears. This was the life!  
  
Finally, Lancelot made his way to the Tall Tower. He kicked down the door, squashing the heavily armored guard like a roach.  
  
"Here, you're not allowed in here!" said the staff-wielding guard, but Lancelot paid him no heed and picked up a chair and smashed it over the guard's head. The guard collapsed like a rag doll.  
  
Lancelot saw a figure with long, curly red hair standing by the window of the room. This must be the princess!, he thought, and ran up to her side and knelt down.  
  
"O fair one, I am your humble servant Sir Lancelot of Camelot," he said, looking up expectantly as she began to turn around. "I have come to take you. oh, I'm terribly sorry!" he said, realizing his mistake.  
  
"You got my note!" Herbert said excitedly.  
  
"Um, well, I got a note, yes," Lancelot said nervously. This hadn't quite been the rescue he had had in mind.  
  
"You've come to rescue me!"  
  
"Um, well, no, you see, I hadn't," Lancelot stammered.  
  
Herbert ignored him. "I knew someone would!" he said, spreading his arms. The choir next door began to sing once more. "I knew that somewhere out there, there must be someone who would,"  
  
"Stop that, stop that!" Sabertooth roared, bursting into the room. "Who are you?" he asked Lancelot.  
  
"I'm your son!" Herbert said.  
  
"No, not you!" Sabertooth snapped.  
  
"Uh, I'm Sir Lancelot, sir,"  
  
"He's come to rescue me, father!"  
  
"Well, let's not jump to conclusions here," Lancelot said.  
  
"Did you kill all those guards?" Sabertooth asked, indicating the numerous dead bodies strewn in the halls.  
  
"Uh, oh. Yes, yes I did. Terribly sorry," Lancelot said apologetically.  
  
"They cost me 50 pounds a piece!"  
  
"Well, I'm awfully sorry," Lancelot said, highly embarrassed at the whole situation. "Look, I can explain everything,"  
  
"Don't be afraid of him, Sir Lancelot!" Herbert said, walking over to the window. "I've got a rope all ready!"  
  
Indeed, he did have a rope ready, and he tied it securely to the bed, cast the end out the window, and prepared to climb down to freedom.  
  
Sabertooth ignored Pyro. "You killed 8 wedding guests in all!" he said, continuing to list the casualties.  
  
"Well, you see, I really thought your son was a lady," Lancelot said, blushing.  
  
"Oh, well I can understand that," Sabertooth said, just as embarrassed as Lancelot was.  
  
"Hurry, Sir Lancelot, hurry!" Pyro called, standing up on the windowsill.  
  
"Shut up!" Sabertooth said, then turned back to Lancelot. "You only killed the bride's father, that's all!"  
  
"Well, I really didn't mean to," Lancelot explained.  
  
"Didn't mean to? You put your sword right through his head!"  
  
"Oh dear! Is he all right?"  
  
"You even kicked the bride in the chest! This is going to cost me a fortune!" Sabertooth moaned.  
  
"Well look, I can explain," Lancelot said. "I was in the forest, riding north from Camelot, when I got this note, you see," he said, holding up Pyro's note.  
  
"Camelot?" Sabertooth asked him in a curious tone. "Did you say you were from Camelot?"  
  
"Uh, I am a knight of King Arthur, sir, yes,"  
  
Pyro started to climb out the window. "Hurry!" he called from outside, clinging tightly to the rope.  
  
"Very nice castle, Camelot," Sabertooth said. "Very good pig country, I understand,"  
  
"Is it?" Lancelot asked. He had not been at Camelot long enough to notice how well suited the land was for raising pigs.  
  
"Hurry! I am ready!" Pyro called again.  
  
Sabertooth walked over to the window and stealthily pulled out a dagger. "Say, would you like to come have a drink?" he asked Lancelot, his back to the window.  
  
"Ah, well, that's awfully nice of you, I mean, to be so understanding and all," Lancelot said.  
  
"Oh, don't mention it," Sabertooth said, and sliced through the rope.  
  
"You see, I'm afraid that when I'm in this idiom I tend to get a bit carried away sometimes," Logan said.  
  
"Of course, of course. It happens to the best of us," Sabertooth said and put his arm around Lancelot's shoulder and led him out of the room.  
  
X  
  
Outside, Pyro felt the rope suddenly go loose in his hands. He had time to scream meekly before he plummeted to the ground.  
  
X  
  
"So you see, here I thought I was rescuing a beautiful princess," Lancelot said to Kurt. "But it turned out I was really rescuing a beautiful prince! It was really quite embarrassing. But it was an honest mistake. I mean, with his long red hair, his smooth, fair skin, that soft gentle voice, I really did think he was a woman,"  
  
"Right, right," Kurt said, feigning interest in Lancelot's story while analyzing what the knight had told him as he tested a theory. I was right, he is gay, Kurt concluded, thinking about how Lancelot had described the prince. "So then what happened?" he asked, trying to suppress a yawn.  
  
"Oh, you wouldn't believe the excitement that happened next!" Lancelot said, and continued on with his story.  
  
X  
  
Sabertooth led Lancelot downstairs into the main part of the castle, giving him a tour.  
  
"This here is the main hall," he said. "We're going to have all this knocked out and made into one big living room, though,"  
  
Several of the guests were still milling about, tending to their wounds and consoling their friends who had lost loved ones to Lancelot's onslaught. One of them caught sight of the knight coming back into the hall.  
  
"There he is!" he shouted, and the guests roared and charged at Lancelot. Lancelot unsheathed his claws and prepared to do battle one more time.  
  
"Oh, bloody hell!" Sabertooth muttered as Lancelot carved a few more people in twain.  
  
"Alright, enough! Stop it! Stop it!" he shouted, trying to restore order. After several minutes and several new corpses, he was able to get everybody settled down.  
  
"Sorry, sorry!" Lancelot said and turned to Sabertooth. "You see what I mean? I just get carried away. Sorry everyone, I really am!" he called to the crowd.  
  
"He killed the best man!" shouted one of the guests. The other guests began to clamor again, but Sabertooth held up his hands for silence.  
  
"Hold it! Now! This is Sir Lancelot, from the Court of Camelot, a very brave and influential knight, and my special guest here today,"  
  
"Hello," Lancelot said, giving the hostile crowd a wave.  
  
"He killed my auntie!" shouted a guest.  
  
"Please! Please!" Sabertooth shouted above the ensuing noise. "This is supposed to be a happy occasion!" he said, reminding them of the scheduled nuptials. "We are here today to witness the union of two young people in the joyful bond of holy wedlock. Unfortunately, one of them, my son Herbert, has just fallen to his death," he said with not a trace of sorrow in his voice.  
  
The crowd began to wail and moan at this sad turn of events.  
  
Sabertooth quickly got their attention again. "But I don't want to think that I've lost a son," he said. "So much as I've gained a daughter!"  
  
The crowd clapped, and Sabertooth continued.  
  
"For, since the tragic death of her father,"  
  
"He's not dead!" said one of the guests as the bride's father slowly recovered from his wounds.  
  
Sabertooth frowned. He was close to gaining a huge inheritance, and he did not want to lose it so suddenly. "Since the near fatal wounding of her father,"  
  
"He's getting better!" said the guest, as the father of the bride stood up, looking fairly healthy despite the slashes across his chest.  
  
Sabertooth snarled and nodded at one of his guards. "For, since her own father, who, when he seemed about to recover, suddenly felt the icy hand of death upon him!"  
  
At that, the guard stabbed the bride's father in the back, and the man crumpled dead to the floor.  
  
"He's died!" said the guest.  
  
Finally, Sabertooth thought, and continued on. "And I want his only daughter to look upon me as her very own dad, in a very real, legally binding sense, of course,"  
  
"And I feel sure that the merger, er, I mean, the union between the Princess and the brave but dangerous Sir Lancelot of Camelot," he said, hoping that he could now get Lancelot into his family as well.  
  
"Um, wait just a minute," Lancelot said. It was bad enough that he had nearly rescued a prince instead of a princess, but now he was being asked to marry someone that looked more like a cow than a person.  
  
Suddenly, one of the guests jumped up and pointed to the drawbridge. "Look! The dead prince!" he cried as Pyro limped into the room.  
  
"He's not quite dead!" said one of the guests.  
  
"Shut up!" roared the room at him. The guest looked around nervously and said nothing.  
  
"No, I feel much better," Pyro said.  
  
"You fell out of the Tall Tower, you creep!" Sabertooth roared, his grand plans for the future ruined by his son's survival.  
  
"No, I was saved at the last minute," Pyro said.  
  
"How?" Sabertooth asked, in shock that his son of all people could survive such a fall.  
  
"Well, I'll tell you," he said. The bridesmaids took their cue and began singing.  
  
"No! Not like that!" Sabertooth said, but he was ignored as Pyro began to recount how he had been saved.  
  
Lancelot watched the bridesmaids and the guests singing along with Pyro and decided that it was time for him to leave. The trouble was, he couldn't seem to find an exit. Just then, Concorde appeared in an open doorway, looking very much alive.  
  
"Quickly sir!" she called. "Come this way!"  
  
"No, it isn't right for my idiom!" Lancelot said. "I must escape more, uh," What was that word again?  
  
"Dramatically, sir?"  
  
"Yes, dramatically!" Lancelot said, glad that he had the girl around to help him through these tough spots.  
  
With that, he dashed up the stairs and grabbed onto a dangling banner, intending to swing out the window and make his escape. Unfortunately, he had misjudged the length of the banner, and came up short on his swing and wound up dangling several feet above the floor.  
  
"Um, excuse me!" he called to the singing guests. "Could someone give me a push?"  
  
X  
  
"And that's how I made my daring escape!" Lancelot concluded triumphantly. "What did you think?" he asked, turning to Kurt.  
  
Kurt's only reply was a snore. The boy was fast asleep, his tail twitching gently as he thought about Amanda.  
  
"Oh, honestly," Lancelot muttered, and stirred up the fire again. "It wasn't THAT bad of a story!"  
  
X 


	14. Evil Plan Tech Support, can I help you?

After purchasing a nice-looking, fairly inexpensive shrubbery, Scott and Bedevire made their way back into the forest, hoping that the Knights of Ni would be satisfied, thus sparing another 6-day round trip journey. They returned to the spot the Knights had said to come to and waited. After a few minutes of waiting, the Knights appeared, and they began inspecting the shrubbery.  
  
"Oh Knights of Ni," Scott said. "We have you brought you your shrubbery. May we go now?  
  
Pietro knelt down to look at some of the shrubbery's finer details. "It is a good shrubbery. I like the little laurels particularly," he said. Then he stood up. "But there is one small problem,"  
  
"What is that?" Scott asked nervously.  
  
"We are now, no longer the Knights Who Say Ni!" said Pietro. "We are now, the Knights Who Say: Icky Icky Icky Icky PeTang ZoomBoing!"  
  
"Um, ok," said Scott. "So, what does that mean exactly?"  
  
"Therefore, we must first give you a test,"  
  
Oh no, thought Scott. "What is this test, O Knights of, er, Knights Who So Recently Said Ni?" he asked.  
  
"Firstly, you must bring us," Pietro said. "Another shrubbery!" There was yet another dramatic chord.  
  
"Not another shrubbery!" Scott protested. Another 6 days! And who knew what these ridiculous knights would be calling themselves by the time he got back. Scott wished the rest of his knights were here; united, they might perhaps stand a chance of fighting their way through this roadblock.  
  
"Then, when you have found this shrubbery, you must place it here, beside this shrubbery," Pietro instructed, "So that you get a nice two-level effect with a little path running down the middle,"  
  
"A path! A path! Ni!" shouted some of the other knights.  
  
"Then, when you have found the shrubbery, you must cut down the mightiest tree in the forest," Pietro said. "With. a herring!" There was one more dramatic chord as Pietro held up a small, rotting fish, to indicate exactly what Scott was supposed to use.  
  
Pietro looked at the other Knights of Ni, who were holding instruments in their hands. "Hey, that was a good one!" Pietro said to the Knights, who were holding instruments in their hands. "Very sinister,"  
  
"Ni! Ni! Shh, shh!" said the Knights. They put their instruments away and went back to looking menacing.  
  
That's the last straw, Scott decided. Spending nearly two weeks to find shrubberies for these knights was one thing, but cutting down a tree with a fish would take forever. This silliness had to end right now.  
  
"We shall do no such thing!" Scott shouted.  
  
"Oh, please," Pietro said.  
  
"Cut down a tree with a herring? It can't be done!" Scott said, trying to point out the knight's irrationality.  
  
The knights clapped their hands to their ears and screamed in pain. "Aaah! Don't say that word!" Pietro said.  
  
"What word?" Scott said, hoping Pietro would tell him so that he could say it again and make the mutant suffer some more.  
  
"I cannot tell! Suffice to say, you have said one of the words that the Knights of Ni cannot hear!"  
  
"I thought you were calling yourselves the Knights of Icky Icky whatever!" Scott said. "Anyway, how can we avoid saying the word if you won't tell us what it is?"  
  
"Aah! You said the word again!"  
  
"What, is?" Scott asked curiously.  
  
"No, not is! You wouldn't get very far in life not saying 'is', would you?  
  
Suddenly, Bedevire saw another figure emerge from the forest. "Look, my liege, it's Sir Robin!" he said excitedly.  
  
X  
  
Indeed, it was Sir Robin who appeared, his minstrels still singing about his deeds.  
  
"He is packing it in, and packing it up, And sneaking away, and buggering off, And chickening out, and pissing off home, Yes, bravely he is throwing in the sponge!"  
  
Scott was very glad to see Robin arrive. Now, he figured, they might have a chance against the Knights of Ni.  
  
"Sir Robin!" Scott hailed.  
  
"My liege!" Robin replied. "It's good to see you!"  
  
Meanwhile, the Knights continued to cry in agony.  
  
"Now he said the word!" Pietro said.  
  
Scott decided to ignore the knights and ask Robin how his quest had gone.  
  
"Surely you've not given up your quest for the Holy Grail?"  
  
Robin's minstrels answered firs. "He is sneaking away, and buggering off,"  
  
"Shut up!" Robin said, wishing that he left the boys back in Camelot. Their tune had gotten very repetitive lately. "No, no, far from it," he said to Scott.  
  
"He said the word again!" Pietro said, as the knights went on yelling.  
  
Robin was extremely confused by the knights' behavior.  
  
"Um, I was looking for it, uh, here, here in this forest," he continued, as the knights' screams got louder.  
  
"Stop saying the word! The word!" Pietro shouted.  
  
"Oh, stop it!" Scott said, fed up with this nonsense.  
  
"He said it again!" Pietro said, then slowly realized what word had just passed across his lips.  
  
"Wait! I said it! Aah! I said it again! That's three 'it's'!" Pietro said, coming to pieces.  
  
Scott had had enough. "Come on, let's get out of here!" he said, and he, Bedevire, Robin, and the minstrels made their escape from the knights, having gained a satisfactory measure of revenge.  
  
X  
  
In the fortress, Magneto clutched his head in his hands. "Oh, why didn't I listen to his mother and put HIM in that institution instead of Wanda!" he groaned. His son had just been defeated by a lowly syllable, and Magneto was not a proud papa at the moment.  
  
Xavier tried to take advantage of Magneto's despair. "You now, Eric, perhaps they've suffered enough in that dimension. Maybe it's time to bring them home and end this madness,"  
  
Magneto sighed. "As much as I'd like to leave Pietro to rot in that wretched dimension, I think you're right," Magneto said. "I concede the bet,"  
  
"Forget about the bet for now," Xavier said. "What matters is getting our people home,"  
  
Magneto smiled and clapped Xavier on the shoulder. "You're a good man, Charles," he said, and walked over to the Evil Chaos Inducer ©  
  
"I just need to make a few little calculations and we'll have them all back in no time," Magneto said, and began programming the Inducer to bring the X- Men home.  
  
"Let's see, square root of the hypotenuse, times pi, carry the three," Magneto said, going through the complex equations necessary to bridge the gap between dimensions. "There, that should do it," he said. "Stand back, I'm opening the vortex now," Magneto threw the switch.  
  
And absolutely nothing happened.  
  
"Um, shouldn't something be happening by now?" Xavier asked as the machine sat idle.  
  
"What's wrong with this piece of junk!" Magneto shouted, and kicked the Inducer. The blow caused a side panel to fall off, exposing a small tag.  
  
"What's this?" Magneto said, looking at the tag. A look of displeasure spread across his face as he read it.  
  
"Out of order?!" he shouted in despair.  
  
Damn!, thought Xavier. Even in the not-so-distant future, nothing ever seemed to work.  
  
"Charles, you're not going to believe this," Magneto said. "It says that the warranty's expired,"  
  
Xavier groaned as Magneto walked out of the room.  
  
"Where are you going now?" Xavier asked him.  
  
"I'm going to call tech support. There's got to be some way to get this thing fixed!"  
  
X  
  
Magneto picked up the phone and dialed the number for the Evil Chaos Inducer © Support Hotline.  
  
"Hello," said the mechanical recording on the other end. "You have reached the Evil Chaos Inducer © Support Hotline. Your call is very important to us. Please hold while we transfer you to the first available operator,"  
  
"This better not take all day," Magneto grumbled. "I still have to take over the world,"  
  
After several minutes listening to Enya, a human voice finally came on the line.  
  
"Hello, Evil Chaos Inducer © Support Hotline, how may I direct your call?" the operator asked.  
  
"Hello, this is Eric Magnus Lensharr aka Magneto. I recently ordered your Evil Chaos Inducer © and I am very displeased with how your product has performed!" Magneto said.  
  
"Sir, our customer service division is closed today, you'll have to try back during normal business hours," said the operator.  
  
"Now wait just a minute!" Magneto shouted. "I paid a lot of money for this machine, and I need to get it working NOW! Send somebody out here to fix it immediately!"  
  
"I'm sorry, sir, but our technicians aren't on call on weekends. Please try your call again on Monday," said the operator, and hung up on Magneto.  
  
"Aargh!" Magneto shouted, and crushed the phone in his hand. "Stupid, worthless, miserable," he muttered as he walked back into the theatre, plotting all sorts of painful ways to punish the operator's impudence.  
  
"Anything?" Xavier asked hopefully.  
  
"Just our luck, they don't send repairmen out on the weekends," Magneto grumbled.  
  
"Great," Xavier muttered, rolling his eyes. "You should have let me talk to them, I could have brainwashed him to fix it, and wax your spheres for no extra cost,"  
  
"As I'm sure you're aware, Charles, telepathic powers need a mind to function on. Your powers would have been useless, since this idiot clearly didn't have one!" Magneto said. "It looks like they'll have to find their own way back," he sighed.  
  
"So how do they do that?" Xavier asked.  
  
"Simple, they just have to find the Grail and wish themselves home," said Magneto.  
  
"And how long will that take?"  
  
"At the rate they're going?" Magneto asked. "I'd say, about 20 years,"  
  
"Hope your social security's paid up," Xavier said, and turned back to the viewer to see if his X-Men could escape from this dimension before he officially qualified for the senior citizen's dinner at Denny's.  
  
X 


	15. Hmm, tastes like Jamie

Shortly after passing through the forest, Scott, Bedevire, and Robin found Kurt and Lancelot. There was much rejoicing all around as the party reunited, and they set off together with a renewed spirit of enthusiasm. Further on, they found three new knights to join their quest. Their names were Ector, Gawain, and Bors. Ector was was the tallest of the three at over 8 feet tall, Gawain had a love of playing cards, and Bors looked like he was a living, breathing suit of armor.  
  
Sadly, the happy mood did not last. As they passed through the land of Nador, a fierce winter storm bore down upon them. The harsh winds and frigid temperatures hampered their progress, and they were barely able to travel more than a few miles each day.  
  
As the days passed, the storm showed no sign of relenting, and the party found themselves starving as their food supplies ran out. One frosty night, they sat huddled around a fire, shivering in their armor.  
  
"What are we going to do?" Kurt asked Scott. "We're out of food, and we're lost in the middle of nowhere!" Then, he got hysterical and started crying. "Oh, I'm going to die out here! I'm going to die without ever seeing Amanda again! Without,"  
  
"Kurt! Pull yourself together!" Scott shouted, gripping Kurt by the shoulders and shaking roughly. "I'll think of something," he said, not sure exactly what if anything he could do right now to alleviate their situation.  
  
Just then, Robin came storming past. "I've had it with those wretched boys!" he shouted. "You should hear the things they're singing about me now! I never did any of those things!" He stomped off, complaining on to nobody in particular.  
  
Scott rubbed his chin curiously, pondering something.  
  
"Scott, what are you thinking?" Kurt asked him.  
  
"I've got an idea. Wait here," Scott said, and walked over to Robin's minstrels.  
  
"Er, boys, could you come into my tent for a minute? I'd like to have a word with you," Scott asked them.  
  
"Of course, sire!" said the boys eagerly walked over to Scott's tent.  
  
"I think he's going to make us knights!" James whispered to Oliver as Scott pulled back the flap and let them in. As they walked inside, Scott slowly pulled out a dagger from a sheath on his waist and entered the tent behind them.  
  
X  
  
A short time later.  
  
The knights were all sitting around the fire, eating heartily. Scott's sudden announcement that they would be having a feast that evening had brightened everybody's mood considerably.  
  
"Mmm!" said Bedevire, chewing on a chunk of fresh meat. "This is excellent, sire! Where did you ever find such splendid food, my liege?"  
  
"Oh, I have my ways," Scott said, wiping the juices off his face. "How's yours, Robin?" he asked.  
  
"Oh, perfect, sire! Just the way I like it!" Robin said. "Say, where did those accursed boys run off to now? They're missing the food!"  
  
"Er, I think they went home," Scott said. "They said something about losing their voices with all this bad weather,"  
  
"Oh," said Robin. "Oh, well, no loss. Now I can tell the story about that acid-spitting banana slug properly,"  
  
The knights cheered, and there was much rejoicing as Robin regaled them with the tale of his exploits.  
  
X  
  
The next day, the weather began to clear up, and soon the knights found themselves traveling through a pleasant spring clime. After a few days of journeying, the path began to turn rocky as they headed into the mountains. The high cliffs towered over the knights' heads, casting tall shadows across the path.  
  
"This is certainly a strange land, isn't it?" Bedevire asked.  
  
"Reminds me of home," said Kurt. "Lots of good places to go climbing,"  
  
"Eh, I'd rather keep my feet firmly on the ground than try to scale one of those crags," Lancelot said.  
  
Suddenly, there was an explosion ahead of them. Robin dove for cover behind the nearest rock as the rest of the party looked up to see a man on a small cliff, shooting fire out of his hands.  
  
Robin cowered behind the small stone, hoping that the man on the cliff wouldn't see him.  
  
"Oh, get up," said Scott. "Everybody can see you down there," he chided.  
  
"Sorry, my liege," Robin said, emerging from behind the fist-sized stone that he had been trying to crouch behind.  
  
"Right, come on, then," Scott said, and the party approached the man on the cliff. The man continued to shoot off pyrotechnics as they got closer.  
  
As they approached, Scott saw that the man had a blazing mane of red hair. Pyro, Scott thought. How appropriate.  
  
"What manner of man are you that can summon up fire without flint or tinder?" he called up to the man on the cliff.  
  
"I am an enchanter," Pyro said.  
  
"And by what name are you known?"  
  
"There are those that call me, Tim,"  
  
Strange name for an enchanter, Scott thought. "Greetings, Tim the Enchanter!"  
  
"Greetings, King Arthur!"  
  
"You know my name?" Scott asked.  
  
"I do!" Pyro said, and shot another fireball up into the air. "You seek the Holy Grail!"  
  
This must be the enchanter the old man in Scene 24 was talking about, Scott thought.  
  
"That is our quest! You know much that is hidden, O Tim,"  
  
"Well, I wouldn't be a very good enchanter if I didn't, now would I?" Tim asked, and shot off several more fireballs. Scott felt his own hair beginning to stand on end at the amazing display. He would have to choose his next words carefully lest he provoke the man.  
  
"Yes, we're, we're looking for the Holy Grail. Our quest is to find the Holy Grail," he said nervously.  
  
"Yeah, yes, that's it!" said his fellow knights. Pyro looked at them curiously.  
  
Uh oh, thought Scott. I think we've made him mad.  
  
"And, um, and so we're looking for it," he said. Oh, this wasn't going very good at all, he thought. He's going to turn us into a crisp and we can't do a thing about it.  
  
"Yes, we've been looking for it for ages!" said Robin.  
  
"For an eternity!" said Bedevire.  
  
Pyro said nothing, choosing instead to shoot out a long blaze of flame.  
  
"Fine," said Scott, beginning to back away. "I don't want to waste any more of your time, but I don't suppose you could tell us where to find a., um, a um," he stuttered.  
  
"A what?" Pyro asked, raising an eyebrow.  
  
"A gah, a gr, gr,"  
  
"A Grail?!"  
  
"Yes, that's it, I think," Scott said, putting his arms over his head to prepare for the incoming blast that he knew Pyro was going to shoot at them.  
  
"Yes!" Pyro said unexpectedly.  
  
"Oh! Well, um, thank you, thank you very much!" Scott said, relieved that he wouldn't be getting fried just yet.  
  
Pyro shot off 8 fireballs in a row. They spiraled through the air and collided above the knights' heads, sending a cloud of sparks flying. One of them landed in Kurt's fur, and Kurt jumped in the air, frantically trying to get the spark off of him before it ignited his fur.  
  
Scott brushed a few stray sparks aside. "Look, you're obviously a busy man, so,"  
  
"Yes, I can help you find the Holy Grail!" Pyro interrupted.  
  
"Ah, splendid," Bedevire said.  
  
"Much obliged!" Kurt echoed, finally catching the rogue spark.  
  
"To the north there lies a cave," said Pyro. "The Cave of Caerbannog, wherein, carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of Olfin Bedwere of Rhegin make plain the resting place of the most Holy Grail!" With that, he shot a large fireball toward the cliff behind the knights, blasting a large hole in the mountain and sending debris flying.  
  
"Where might we find this cave, O Tim?" Scott asked.  
  
"Follow!" Pyro said. "But, follow only if ye be men of valor, for the entrance to this cave is guarded by a creature so foul, so cruel that no man yet has fought with it and lived! Bones of full fifty men lie strewn about its lair!" he warned them.  
  
"So, brave knights, if you doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty, sharp pointy teeth!" Tim finished. He curved two of his fingers into claws and began scratching at the air to show the knights just what they were in for.  
  
"What an eccentric performance," Scott muttered, and the knights followed Pyro towards the cave.  
  
X 


	16. But I thought rabbits made GOOD pets!

Scott and the knights followed Pyro towards the cave of Caerbannog. As they followed him, their "horses" began to whinny nervously. Scott looked back at his new squire, who looked rather like Kitty, and saw that she had a very frightened look in her eyes. The horses whinnied louder as they moved on.  
  
"They're nervous, sire," Lancelot said.  
  
How is it that we still haven't been able to find real horses?, Scott wondered to himself, but played along with the nonsense.  
  
"Right, then we'd better leave them here. Dismount!" he ordered.  
  
All the knights, except for Kurt, raised their legs as if they were climbing off their horses, as their squires packed their coconut shells away. The party continued on as Pyro led them to the edge of a ravine. Scott saw a black cave at the bottom of the ravine. Wisps of smoke billowed out of the entrance.  
  
"Behold, the cave of Caerbannog!" Pyro said, pointing to the cave's entrance.  
  
This is it, Scott thought. Time to find out where the Grail was. "Keep me covered," he said, and approached the edge of the ravine.  
  
"What with?" asked Lancelot.  
  
"Oh, just keep me covered," Scott replied, and started down the ravine.  
  
"Too late!" Pyro shouted in alarm, as the members of the Python Symphony Orchestra that had been following them around the whole time played yet another dramatic chord.  
  
"Where? What is it?"  
  
"There he is!" Pyro said, pointing down towards the cave.  
  
"Where?" Scott asked, not seeing anything remotely dangerous.  
  
"There!" Pyro said, pointing towards a small white rabbit that had just hopped out of the cave.  
  
"Ooh! Look at the cute bunny!" Kitty said. "Can I go pet it?"  
  
Scott looked closer but couldn't see anything else. "What, behind the rabbit?" he asked, bracing himself for the appearance of the fierce monster that Pyro had warned them about.  
  
"It is the rabbit!" Pyro said.  
  
Scott walked back to Pyro angrily. "You silly sod!" Scott shouted at him.  
  
"What?" Pyro asked innocently.  
  
"You got us all worked up!"  
  
"That's no ordinary rabbit!" Pyro said. "That's the most foul, cruel, bad- tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!"  
  
"You tit! I soiled my armor, I was so scared!" Robin said. Everybody looked at him and wrinkled their faces. Kurt, who was standing next to Robin, pinched his nose at the stench. Gah! He makes Toad smell pleasant!, Kurt thought disgustedly.  
  
"Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide, he's a killer!" Pyro said.  
  
"Oh, get stuffed!" Kurt said, not buying into this nonsense for a second. As a fellow furry creature, he felt an instant rapport with the rabbit.  
  
"He'll give you a treat, mate!" Pyro warned.  
  
"You manky Scot's git!" Robin said.  
  
"I'm warning you!"  
  
"Oh, what's he do anyway? Nibble your bum?" Robin joked.  
  
"He's got huge, sharp," Pyro began. "Er, he can leap about, oh, just look at the bones!" he said, pointing at the several bleached bones that lay strewn on the ground.  
  
"Enough!" Scott said. "Go on, Bors, chop its head off!"  
  
"Right!" Colossus said, and drew his sword. "Silly little bleeder! One rabbit stew coming right up," With that, he started down the hill after the rabbit.  
  
"Look!" Pyro shouted.  
  
As Colossus made his way down the hill, the rabbit jumped into the air and sprang at him. It landed on his shoulder, leaned over, and bit through Colossus's neck. Colossus screamed as the rabbit chewed his head clean off his shoulders, and fell to the ground, a headless corpse.  
  
"Jesus Christ!" Scott screamed, horrified at what he had just seen.  
  
"I warned you!" Pyro said.  
  
"Oh no! I did it again!" Robin said  
  
"On second thought, I don't think I want to pet that thing after all," Kitty said, moving farther away from Robin.  
  
"I warned you, but did you listen to me?" Pyro asked, laughing madly. "Oh, you knew it all, didn't you? It's just a harmless little bunny, isn't it? Well, it's always the same! I always tell them,"  
  
"Oh, shut up!" Scott shouted and drew his sword. "Charge!" he shouted, and dashed down the hill, his knights right on his heels.  
  
On the way down, Robin tripped over Colossus' body and rolled to the bottom of the hill. The rest of the knights made it down without incident and engaged the rabbit.  
  
The fight was short and bloody. The rabbit leapt to and fro, biting and gnawing. Scott swatted the air, trying to fend off the gnashing teeth of the killer rabbit. Overwhelmed, he finally ordered a retreat.  
  
"Run away!" he shouted desperately.  
  
"Run away! Run away!" shouted the other knights, and they dashed back up the hill. Pyro laughed hysterically at them, but Scott ignored the enchanter as he took stock of their losses. Having had enough fun for one day, Pyro walked away to start some more fires, leaving the knights to deal with the killer rabbit by themselves.  
  
"Right, how many did we lose?" Scott asked.  
  
"Gawain, Ector," Lancelot said.  
  
"And Bors," Scott added. "Right, that's five,"  
  
"Three, Scott," Kurt corrected.  
  
"Er, right, three," Scott said. Why did I just say five?, he wondered. "Well, we'd better not risk another frontal assault, that rabbit's dynamite,"  
  
"Would it help to confuse it more if we ran away some more?" Robin asked.  
  
"Oh, shut up. And go and change your armor," Scott said, annoyed at both the knight's uselessness and stench.  
  
Kurt suddenly had idea, a recollection of the tactics the French had used back in their battle. "Let us taunt it!" he said. "It may become so confused that it makes a mistake,"  
  
"Like what?" Scott asked crossly. As good of an X-Man Kurt was, he still had a long ways to go when it came to battle strategy.  
  
"Well, um," Kurt said. "Oh, forget it,"  
  
"Have we got bows?" Lancelot asked.  
  
"No," Scott said regretfully. "I knew we should have gotten those at Euro PythonLand instead of those ridiculous T-shirts!"  
  
"We have the Holy Hand Grenade," Lancelot reminded him.  
  
Scott smacked himself in the head. How could have he forgotten that powerful relic? "Of course!" he said. "The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch! It's one of the sacred relics Brother Maynard carries with him. Brother Maynard!" Scott called.  
  
Maynard, who looked exactly like Bobby, emerged from his tent, dressed in white robes and carrying a wooden box. Two acolytes walked in front of him, chanting and swinging braziers of incense in front of them. Maynard walked up to Scott and opened the box containing the Holy Hand Grenade.  
  
"How does it work?" Scott asked Lancelot.  
  
"I know not, my liege," Lancelot replied.  
  
Pathetic, Scott thought, Logan not knowing how a bomb works. "Consult the Book of Armaments!" he ordered.  
  
Bobby turned to one of his acolytes, who was carrying a leather bible. "Armaments, Chapter Two, verses 9-21," he said.  
  
The acolyte, who looked just like Jamie, opened the book and began to read.  
  
"And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high," Jamie read. "saying, 'O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.' And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu--  
  
"Skip a bit, Brother," Bobby interrupted.  
  
Jamie scanned down a few lines to find the actual instructions, and continued. "And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.'  
  
"Amen," Bobby said.  
  
"Amen," said the knights.  
  
"Right," said Scott, taking the Holy Hand Grenade out of the box and pulling out the pin. "One, two, five!" he counted.  
  
"Three, Scott!" Kurt quickly corrected before Scott could blow his own arm off.  
  
"Er, three!" Scott said, and lobbed the Holy Hand Grenade. The grenade sailed through the air as a choir of angels sang. It landed next to the rabbit and a second later it exploded, blowing the rabbit into tiny bits.  
  
Their foe vanquished, Scott and the other knights made their way back down the edge of the ravine and into the Cave of Caerbannog.  
  
X  
  
Magneto grimaced as he watched the killer rabbit make mincemeat of his acolytes. "Oh well," he said. "Saves me the trouble of killing them off myself later, anyways," He made a mental note to write up some more help wanted ads for evil mutants after the show was over. Then he saw where Scott was leading the knights.  
  
"No, you fool, don't take them in there!" Magneto shouted at the screen. Naturally, his words were not heeded.  
  
"What's wrong?" Xavier asked.  
  
"The first rule of surviving in a strange medieval dimension: Never go into a dark cave!" Magneto said. "Who knows what sort of horrible things they'll run into in there?"  
  
"Relax," Xavier said. "I have faith in Scott. He'll lead them through safely,"  
  
"Who are you, God or something?" Magneto asked.  
  
"Not quite, but I do work in mysterious ways," Xavier replied.  
  
"Right, whatever," Magneto said, hoping that Xavier's faith in Cyclops wasn't misplaced.  
  
X 


	17. Kurt better start rethinking those vows ...

The interior of the Cave of Caerbannog was very dark and damp. The knights had to light torches to see as they ventured inside.  
  
"Is it me, or is it a little hot in here?" Kurt asked.  
  
"Now that you mention it, it does feel a bit humid," Scott said, ducking beneath a stalactite. The layer of mist permeated the cave, and the air resounded deeply throughout the interior. It almost seemed as if the cave itself was breathing.  
  
They continued on when Bedevire suddenly let out a scream. "Aaah!" she shouted. "Get it off! Get it off!"  
  
Lancelot immediately drew his sword, looking around for danger. Scott saw that Bedevire had run into a big spider web, and was frantically trying to brush the strands out of her hair.  
  
Scott helped Bedevire disentangle herself from the web. Robin just laughed at her.  
  
"Ha!" he guffawed. "Bedevire's afraid of a little spider! And they call ME 'The Not-as-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot!"  
  
"I'll have you know," Bedevire said brusquely. "That web was made by the deadly Silliwok spider. Those things can run like you wouldn't believe, and they're so venomous that one bite will melt the flesh right off your bones!"  
  
"Aah! Keep them away from me!" Robin screamed, and ducked behind Kurt. Kurt pushed the cowardly knight away from him, lest he attract the unwanted attention of some monster lurking in the shadows.  
  
The party made their way further into the cave, until they came to a tall rock face. They peered closely at the rock face, and they could make out some kind of strange symbols scratched into the rock.  
  
"There, look at that!" Scott said, pointing at the symbols for the benefit of anybody who may have ignored the last paragraph.  
  
"What does it say?" Lancelot asked, completely baffled by the symbols.  
  
"What language is that? If it even is a language," Kurt said.  
  
"Brother Maynard, you're our scholar," Scott said, looking at Bobby.. "What does it say?"  
  
Bedevire placed her hands on her hips, quite put off that Scott had not asked HER for advice. Why not? After all, SHE was the smart one in this whole outfit, wasn't she? She made a note to kill Maynard later to make sure her status as genius in the party was secure.  
  
Bobby approached the wall and stared at the carvings for a few moments. "It's Aramaic!" he said, recognizing the language.  
  
"Of course!" Kurt said. "Joseph of Arimathea!"  
  
"Oh, of course!" Lancelot said, chiming in lest he be thought to be completely daft.  
  
"What does it say?" Scott asked Bobby.  
  
Bobby traced his finger over the symbols as he translated them.  
  
"It reads, 'Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimathea,'" he said. "'He who is valiant, and pure of spirit, may find the Holy Grail in the Castle of.',"  
  
He paused as he tried to make out the last word. "The Castle of Aaaaggghhh," he said, groaning on the last word.  
  
"The what?" Scott asked, confused.  
  
"The Castle of Aaaagghhh," Bobby said, groaning again on the last word.  
  
"What does that mean?" Bedevire asked.  
  
"He must have died while carving it," Bobby said.  
  
"Oh, come on! That's ridiculous!" Lancelot said.  
  
"Well, that's what is says," Bobby said.  
  
"Look, if he were dying, he wouldn't have bothered to carve 'aaaaggghhh'," Scott said, pointing out this latest bit of lunacy. "He would have just SAID it!"  
  
"Well, that's what's carved in the rock!" Bobby said, defending his translating skills.  
  
"Perhaps he was dictating?" Kurt suggested.  
  
"Kurt, that is the absolute stupidest thing I've ever heard you say!" Scott said, getting frustrated again. He realized that he had been getting frustrated quite a bit lately. This dimension must be starting to affect him more strongly now. "Does it say anything else?" he asked Bobby.  
  
"No, just 'aaaaggghhh'," Bobby said.  
  
The knights stood, trying to figure out what the phrase meant.  
  
"Aaaaggghhh," Lancelot said, turning the word around in his mouth.  
  
"Aaaaggghhh," Scott said. Perhaps it was some kind of code.  
  
"Do you suppose he meant the Camaaaaggghhh?" Bedevire asked.  
  
"Where's that?" Kurt asked her.  
  
"France, I think," she replied.  
  
"I hope that's not what it means," Scott said. The last thing he needed right now was to see Pietro again.  
  
"Isn't there a Saint Aaaaggghhvs in Cornwall?" Lancelot asked.  
  
"No, that's Saint Ives," Scott corrected him.  
  
The knights continued to ponder the word. Suddenly, Bedevire shouted out something.  
  
"Ooohooh!" she shouted, seeing a large shape appear behind them.  
  
"No, no, aaaaggghhh," Lancelot said to her, demonstrating. "From the back of the throat,"  
  
"No, no, Ooohooh, is surprise and alarm," Bedevire said, pointing at the shape.  
  
Lancelot caught her meaning but still ignored where she was pointing. "Oh, you mean sort of an AAAAHH!" he shouted.  
  
"Yes, that's it. AAAAAHHH!" she shouted again, finally managing to get everybody's attention.  
  
The knights whirled around to see what all the commotion was about, and saw a massive beast with a gigantic mouth and dozens of eyes staring down at them, drool dripping from its rows of razor-sharp teeth. As if on cue, the Python Symphony played their loudest dramatic chord yet.  
  
"It's the Legendary Black Beast of AAAAAHHH!!!" Bobby started to say, but the Black Beast suddenly leaned down and swallowed the scholar in one bite, then turned its attention to the Orchestra, decimating the string section in an instant.  
  
"Jesus Christ!" Scott screamed. "Run away!"  
  
"Run away!" the knights screamed, and frantically dashed towards the exit as the Black Beast pursued them. Naturally, Robin was several yards out in front of everybody else.  
  
The Black Beast chased the knights back and forth through the cave, its footsteps echoing through the cave like cannon-fire. It drew closer and closer, now just a few yards behind them.  
  
"Quick, this way!" Scott said, and the knights ducked behind a stone pillar. The Black Beast did not see them jump out of the way and kept on running past them.  
  
The knights waited a few moments, then Bedevire broke the silence. "I think we lost it," she said.  
  
"Phew, that was a close one," Robin said. Suddenly, there was a thunderous roar from behind them. The Black Beast had doubled back and was standing right behind the knights, who immediately took off running again.  
  
"Keep running!" Scott shouted, as the Black Beast closed in. The knights took a wrong turn in the cave and wound up trapped against solid rock as the Black Beast slowly walked up to them, licking its lips.  
  
"We're done for!" Kurt screamed, then threw his arms around Scott. "Oh, Amanda, I love you so much!" he cried.  
  
"Kurt, I'm not Amanda!" Scott said, pushing the obsessed mutant away from him as the Black Beast drew perilously close.  
  
X  
  
In the fortress, Magneto and Xavier watched in horror as the Black Beast moved in for the kill. Escape seemed totally hopeless. Then, just as the Black Beast lunged forward, Magneto's viewer shorted out.  
  
"No!" Magneto screamed. He leapt to his feet and started pounding on the viewer, trying the tried and true guy's way of fixing things. "We can't lose the reception now, we won't find out how they get away!"  
  
"You mean, they actually get away from this?" Xavier asked.  
  
"Oh, of course they get away!" Magneto said. "Think about it. This dimension is all about pure chaos. Why should they get eaten by a monster when there are far more sillier ways they could all die?"  
  
"I suppose you do have a point," Xavier said, not wanting to think about the variety of silly ways how his X-Men could perish.  
  
Finally, after several blows to the viewer, Magneto got the reception back online. Sure enough, Scott and the other knights were safely outside the Cave of Caerbannog, having somehow escaped from the Black Beast.  
  
X  
  
"What a getaway! They'll never believe this one!" Kurt said, greatly relieved to still be in one piece.  
  
"Who, the readers?" Robin asked.  
  
"Shh!" Scott said, hushing them. "Don't talk to the audience,"  
  
"Sorry," Kurt muttered. Then he realized he had some explaining to do.  
  
"Um, Scott, about what happened in there," he said, embarrassed. "It's these stupid chastity vows! I just didn't want to die a virgin!"  
  
"Honestly, that girl's going to be the death of you some day," Scott said, wanting to quickly bury the issue and get on with things.  
  
X 


	18. Welcome to the Gorge of Eternal Peril Po...

Scott and the knights walked around the backside of the Cave of Caerbannog and found themselves staring at a vast ravine. They could see a small, rickety looking bridge suspended over the gap. The ravine was filled with fog, and the knights heard the sounds of torment and agony wafting up from the depths.  
  
"This is the Bridge of Death!" Scott said.  
  
"Oh, great," said Robin, not liking the sound of this one bit.  
  
As the knights approached the bridge, they saw a wizened old man standing next to the bridge on their side.  
  
"Look!" Scott said and pointed at the man. "There's the old man from scene 24!"  
  
"What's he doing here?" Bedevire asked.  
  
Scott recalled what the old man had told him back in the tent. "He is the keeper of the Bridge of Death,"  
  
"Will you stop saying Death already! You're giving me the willies!" Robin said, his knees shaking badly.  
  
"Well, that's what it's called," Scott said. "Anyway, he asks each traveler 5 questions,"  
  
"Three questions," Kurt said.  
  
"Right, three questions," Scott said, glad that he had told Kurt about this obstacle so that he'd be able to correct him. "He who answers the five questions,"  
  
"Three questions," Kurt corrected again.  
  
"Three questions," Scott said, wondering what he'd ever do without Kurt. "May cross in safety,"  
  
"What if you get a question wrong?" Robin said, torrents of sweat dripping down his forehead.  
  
"Then you are cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril," Scott said.  
  
"Peril?" Kurt said, his ears perking up. Maybe Amanda would be down there. If so, he might get a question wrong on purpose if it meant being eternally surrounded by peril.  
  
"Not that kind of peril," Lancelot said, and whispered in Kurt's ear. Kurt turned white as Lancelot explained what sort of peril lay in wait.  
  
"Oh, I see," Kurt said nervously. "Well, who's going to answer the questions then?" he asked.  
  
Scott had an idea. "Sir Robin!" he said, wanting to give the knight a chance to prove his courage or else be rid of the chicken.  
  
"Yes?" Robin asked timidly.  
  
"Brave Sir Robin, you go!" Scott said.  
  
"Uh, um," Robin said, fidgeting nervously. "Hey, I've got a great idea!" he said as inspiration struck. "Why doesn't Lancelot go?"  
  
"Yes, let me go, my liege!" Lancelot volunteered. "I will take him single- handed. I shall make a feint to the northeast and,"  
  
"No, no, hang on!" Scott said. There was no need for violence here. "Just answer the five questions,"  
  
"Three questions,' Kurt said  
  
"Three questions, as best you can. And we will watch, and pray," Scott said, starting to believe that they actually might need a little divine assistance to overcome this.  
  
"I understand, my liege," Lancelot said, and approached the Bridge of Death.  
  
"Stop!" ordered the Bridgekeeper as Lancelot approached him. "He would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see!"  
  
Lancelot was undaunted. "Ask me the questions, Bridgekeeper, I am not afraid!" he said boldly.  
  
"What is your name?" the Bridgekeeper asked.  
  
"My name is Sir Lancelot of Camelot!"  
  
"What is your quest?"  
  
"I seek the Holy Grail!"  
  
"What is your favorite color?"  
  
"Blue!" Lancelot said, not hesitating for a second.  
  
"Right, off you go then," the Bridgekeeper said, and stepped back to allow Lancelot to pass.  
  
"Oh, thank you very much," Lancelot said, and started across the narrow Bridge of Death.  
  
"That's easy!" Robin shouted, and rushed for the bridge, wondering why he had been so afraid in the first place.  
  
"Stop!" the Bridgekeeper said, and launched into his speech again. Robin waved his hand, trying to get the old man to hurry up and get to the questions so that he could get across the bridge.  
  
"Ask me your questions, Bridgekeeper, I am not afraid!" said Robin, being truthful for once.  
  
"What is your name?"  
  
"Sir Robin of Camelot," Robin said non-chalantly.  
  
"What is your quest?"  
  
"To seek the Holy Grail,"  
  
"What, is the capital of Assyria?" asked the old man in a sinister voice.  
  
Robin started to answer, but realized that the old man was asking him a question he wasn't expecting. His mouth flopped open and shut like a fish gasping for breath as he desperately tried to find the answer. "I, I don't know that!" he said. Suddenly, he felt a force pick him up off the ground and send him hurtling through the air. Robin screamed as he was cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril, and disappeared into the fog.  
  
Kurt's eyes went wide as he saw Robin vanish. Timidly, he approached the bridge, his heart pounding in his chest.  
  
"Stop!" ordered the Bridgekeeper. "What is your name?"  
  
In his nervousness, Kurt almost said 'Kurt Wagner', but remembered the role he was playing just in time. "Sir Galahad of Camelot," he said.  
  
"What is your quest?"  
  
"I seek the Grail," Kurt said, his heart racing. He closed his eyes in anticipation of the final question.  
  
"What, is your favorite color?" asked the Bridgekeeper.  
  
Kurt opened his eyes as he heard the question. Phew, he thought, I got the easy one.  
  
"Blue," he said, but then he suddenly recalled an image of Amanda, wearing her favorite sweater that he had given her as a Christmas present.  
  
"No, yel-AAAAAHHHH!" he started to say, then shrieked as the invisible force sent him flying.  
  
"Kurt!" Scott screamed and tried to grab onto his friend, but he was too late. All he could do was watch as Kurt was cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril.  
  
The Bridgekeeper cackled savagely as he saw Scott's reaction to losing Kurt. Bedevire started to step forward, but Scott placed his hand on her shoulder. "Stand back," he said, and walked towards the Bridgekeeper.  
  
"Stop! What is your name?" asked the Bridgekeeper.  
  
"It is Arthur, King of the Britons," Scott said angrily.  
  
"What is your quest?"  
  
"To seek the Holy Grail," And to get the hell out of this place, Scott thought.  
  
"What, is the airspeed velocity of an un-laden swallow?" asked the Bridgekeeper.  
  
Scott hesitated for a second, but then he recalled something that he had heard during his very first encounter in this dimension of lunacy.  
  
"What do you mean?" he asked the Bridgekeeper. "An African, or a European swallow?" he asked, putting everything on the line with his question.  
  
His gambit worked. The Bridgekeeper looked around nervously, expecting something bad to happen to him. "I, I don't know that!" he said. Suddenly, the Bridgekeeper flew through the air and into the Gorge of Eternal Peril, screaming all the way.  
  
Yes! Scott thought triumphantly, pumping his fist in the air. He said a quick silent prayer for Kurt, and stepped onto the bridge. Bedevire followed right behind him.  
  
"How do you know so much about swallows?" Bedevire asked him as they crossed.  
  
"Well, you have to know these sort of things when you're a king you know," Scott said.  
  
X  
  
The bridge swayed back and forth as Scott and Bedevire made their way across. Scott stepped on one board, only to have it break under his weight and fall away. Only Bedevire's quick reflexes kept Scott from falling into the Gorge. Scott looked for the other side, and saw that it seemed miles away. Gritting his teeth, he pressed on, as the Gorge of Eternal Peril Symphony Orchestra, stationed on a ledge below them, played a suspenseful tune.  
  
X  
  
INTERMISSION  
  
"Intermission? What's that mean?" Xavier asked Magneto as the word flashed up on the screen.  
  
"Who knows anymore?" asked Magneto. "All I know is we're out of popcorn. Be back in minute," he said, rising to make some more popcorn for the exciting conclusion that was bound to come from this. someday.  
  
X 


	19. He's BAAAACCCCKKK

Scott and Bedevire safely reached the far side of the Bridge of Death, and found themselves standing in an empty, hilly, foggy countryside, much like the one Scott had found himself in when he first arrived in the Python Dimension.  
  
Scott looked around, trying to find Lancelot, but saw no trace of the knight.  
  
"Lancelot!" he called. "Lancelot!"  
  
The only answer was the blowing wind. Lancelot was nowhere to be found.  
  
They walked on through the gloomy landscape, until they came to the edge of a fog-covered lake. In the center of the lake, they saw a castle, seemingly resting on the water's edge.  
  
"Look at that, my liege!" Bedevire gasped and pointed at the lake. Out of the fog, an empty Viking longship emerged and landed on the beach. Scott could see no sign of rowers or helmsman.  
  
"Be careful," Scott said as he and Bedevire boarded the ship. "It could be a trap,"  
  
Once Scott and Bedevire were on board, the ship pushed off from the beach and floated across the water on its own power. Scott wondered how this miracle was happening. "This can't be possible," he said.  
  
"Strange things must abound in this place," Bedevire said. "Have faith, my liege,"  
  
As the boat drifted across the water, Scott and Bedevire heard ethereal voices singing around them. Scott could sense spirits floating through the mists, guiding their way. Suddenly, the mists dissolved and the island with the castle appeared before them, rising out of the water like a submarine. The boat landed on the island's shore and Scott and Bedevire stepped out onto dry land.  
  
X  
  
As Scott looked up at the castle, he was struck by a sense of completion. Somehow, he knew that this was what he was looking for.  
  
"The Castle Aaaaggghhh!" he exclaimed. "Thank god! Our quest is at an end!"  
  
X  
  
In the fortress, Xavier and Magneto breathed a vast sigh of relief as Scott and Bedevire arrived at the Castle Aaaaggghhh.  
  
"Thank god this is almost over with," Xavier said. Then he looked at the screen and saw somebody he vaguely recognized. "Say, doesn't that one guard look a little familiar?" he asked.  
  
"No, it couldn't be," Magneto said, looking closer. "Oh no. It is!" he groaned as he recognized the guard in question. "He's going to ruin everything!"  
  
X  
  
Scott was so awestruck by the castle's presence that he knelt down and for the first time in his life, began to pray.  
  
"O almighty God," he said. "We thank thee that thou hast safely guided us to the most holy,"  
  
Scott's prayer was interrupted by a loud TWONG! from above. He looked up to see a large pig hurtling towards him. Scott rolled out of the way as the pig crashed down to the ground.  
  
"Jesus Christ!" he shouted, and looked up to see a familiar face leering down at him from the roof of the castle.  
  
"Allo, daffy Eeenglish ka-niggets and Monsieur Arthur king who has the brain of a duck, you know?" Pietro said. "So, we French fellows outwit you a second time-a!"  
  
Scott was instantly furious. "How dare you profane this place with your presence!" he shouted up at Pietro. How dare he even show his face here after everything that Scott had been through and all the people he had lost along the way. "I command you, in the name of the Knights of Camelot, to open the doors of this sacred castle, to which God himself has guided us!" Well, maybe not God, Scott thought. But there was definitely some presence that had brought them this far.  
  
Pietro was unmoved. "How you Eeenglish say 'I', one more time, I'll unclog my nose in your direction, sons of a window-dresser. So, you think you could out-clever us French folk with your silly knees-bent, running about advancing behavior!" he taunted. "I wave my private parts at your aunties, you cheesy lot of second-hand electric donkey-bottom wipers!"  
  
Scott was stung by the ferocious taunting. "In the name of the Lord, we demand entrance to this sacred castle!" he shouted.  
  
"No chance, Eeenglish bed-wetting types!" Pietro retorted. "I burst my pimples at you and call your door-opening request a silly thing, you tiny- brained wipers of other people's bottoms!"  
  
"If you do not open this door, we shall take this castle by force!" Scott said.  
  
Pietro grabbed a bucket of filthy rainwater and tipped it out on Scott's head. Filth rained down on Scott.  
  
"Aah! In the name of God, stop it!" Scott shouted, trying to cover his head as Pietro dumped a second bucket on top of him. Scott wanted so badly to break down the door of the castle and rush in, sword swinging, but he knew he was vastly outnumbered. Begrudgingly, he admitted defeat and walked away from the castle.  
  
"Yes, depart a lot this time, and cut the approaching any more, or we'll fire arrows at the tops of your heads and make castanets out of your testicles already!" Pietro taunted. "And now, remain gone, you illegitimate- faced bugger-folk. And if you think you got a nasty taunting this time, you ain't heard nothing yet, dappy Eeenglish Ka-niggggetttss!"  
  
Scott started to sob at this ultimate taunt. They had come so close, only to be foiled by Pietro.  
  
X  
  
"That miserable cur!" Magneto raged as he watched Scott retreat from the castle.  
  
"Now, now, Eric, he is your son, after all," Xavier said.  
  
"I wasn't talking about him!" Magneto said. "How can Summers just give up now? I thought you trained him better than that!"  
  
Xavier glared at Magneto, but admitted to himself that Scott was giving up a little too easily. "This isn't over yet," he said, and tried to communicate with Scott again.  
  
X  
  
Scott sat on the beach of the island, glumly holding his head in his hands. Bedevire was trying to console him, but it was doing no good.  
  
"Look on the bright side, my liege," she said. "We did make it this far. Surely that will count for something in the history books,"  
  
"That's not the point!" Scott said. "Pietro's going to get the Grail and we're going to be stuck here forever! Oh, what's the point of it all?!" he wailed in despair.  
  
Suddenly, there was a loud clap of thunder above their heads. Scott and Bedevire looked up to see Xavier's face appear in the clouds overhead. He looked furious.  
  
"Professor, I'm sorry!" Scott cried. "We tried our best, but we just couldn't do it!"  
  
"Stop sniveling!" Xavier shouted. "Do you want to get home or not?"  
  
"Of course I do!" Scott said. "But we've lost so much, and there's just too many of them!"  
  
"Scott, you're an X-Man, albeit a flimsy excuse for one at the moment," Xavier said. "I say you CAN win the day. Now, onward! Attack!"  
  
"How are we going to do it, Professor? We'd need an army to get into that place," Scott said.  
  
"Are you questioning your god?!" Xavier thundered.  
  
"No, sir!" Scott said, falling to his knees in terror. "Please, don't smite me!"  
  
"Behold, here is your army!" Xavier said. Out of the mists, several ships appeared, each laden with scores of knights in full armor.  
  
"And one last thing, to aid you on your quest," Xavier said.  
  
Scott saw Bedevire shake her head, trying to recover from a dizzy spell.  
  
"Scott?" Jean asked. "What's going on? Where are we?"  
  
"Jean!" Scott exclaimed. "You're back! Look, I promise I'll explain later. Right now, we have a job to do,"  
  
"Now, go forth and kick ass!" Xavier ordered and disappeared.  
  
"Yes, Lord!" Scott said. He looked at his army, and then back at the Castle of Aaaaggghhh. "Right, that settles it!" he said, drawing Excalibur from its sheath. The sword's steel sang in the air. "Charge!"  
  
The army behind Scott roared, and rushed towards the castle. On the way, they ran into a gray police wagon that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Before the policemen inside could get out, several knights slashed the tires of the van, flipped it over, and set it ablaze, not letting anything stand in their way.  
  
Scott and Jean lead the charge to the castle, dodging a rain of arrows and stones from above. Scott kicked open the door of the castle and the knights rushed inside. They overwhelmed the few French guards in the main hall and headed upstairs to the keep.  
  
X  
  
Scott and Jean burst into the keep just in time. He saw Pietro holding the Holy Grail in his hands, about to drink from it.  
  
"Amazing, isn't it, Summers?" Pietro asked Scott.  
  
"You've got your memory back!" Scott said.  
  
"Yes, I do!" Pietro said. "Holding this Grail, it's bringing everything back. And I see a choice before me. I can wish for anything I want, and I know exactly what I'm going to wish for! I'm going home, Summers, and I'm leaving you here for the rest of your lives!" he said triumphantly, and raised the Grail to his lips.  
  
Scott realized that he was too far away to stop Pietro from drinking from the Grail. "Professor, if you're still there, I could really use a miracle right now," he prayed.  
  
Scott heard Xavier's voice in his head. "Ask, and you shall receive," he said, as Scott felt a familiar tingling sensation behind his eyeballs.  
  
"You chose poorly, Pietro!" Scott shouted, and shot an optic blast at the silver-haired mutant. The blast struck Pietro in the chest and sent him flying out the window, where he landed in the lake. The Holy Grail clattered to the floor, spilling its contents on the floor.  
  
Scott picked up the Grail and saw it glow brightly in his hands. "Time to go home!" he said, walking over to a small fountain and dipping the Grail in, filling it with water.  
  
"Scott, wait!" Jean said. "This dimension is pure chaos. We have to word our wish exactly as we want it, or all sorts of things could happen,"  
  
"You're right," Scott said, and tried to figure out exactly how they should get home. He knew that one wrong word could possibly send them to an even stranger dimension than this one.  
  
He thought hard, and then realized what he needed to wish for.  
  
"I've got it," he said, and raised the Grail to his lips. "I wish we could have stopped Magneto from sending us to this horrible place!" he said, and with that, he tipped the Grail up and swallowed its contents in one gulp.  
  
The room instantly grew dark and the vortex that had sent them to this dimension appeared above them and sucked them inside.  
  
X 


	20. Something Completely Different

Inside the fortress, Xavier nodded as he heard Scott make his wish. Very good, Scott, Xavier thought, as the vortex opened inside Magneto's theatre and expelled all of the X-Men and the new mutants from it, as well as Pietro and Magneto's acolytes.  
  
"I'm alive!" Kurt said, rejoicing that he was no longer in the Gorge of Eternal Peril. He had suffered horrible, unspeakable things during his brief time there, like having all his fur shaved off with sharp pieces of glass. Fortunately, he had returned completely intact.  
  
"What happened?" asked Bobby. "The last thing I remember was seeing a giant wooden rabbit falling on top of me,"  
  
"Ugh, I feel horrible!" Jamie groaned, clutching at his stomach. "I feel like people have been poking me all over with forks!"  
  
All of the other mutants had similar tales to tell from their time trapped in the Python Dimension. Xavier reassured his students that they were back where they belonged, and then turned to Magneto.  
  
"Well, Eric, I hope you've learned not to tinker with trans-dimensional teleportation from now on," Xavier said. "Next time, you could be the one who winds up in some terrible place,"  
  
"You're right, Charles," Magneto said. "Well, it was good entertaining you, but I think you should be going now," he told the X-Men. "I have an issue to resolve with my son: whether I should kill him, or disown him!"  
  
Pietro gulped nervously at the two equally distasteful choices. "Father, I can explain!" he said, but Magneto heard none of it and started chasing his son around the room.  
  
"Get back here!" Magneto shouted as he chased Pietro around the room. "I'll spank you in ways you won't like!" he roared as Xavier and the X-Men showed themselves out.  
  
X  
  
Scott fell asleep as soon as he sat down in the X-Jet. After less than three seconds he was completely comatose, not having slept for weeks in the other dimension. Jean gently stroked Scott's head, trying to ease his tortured soul. With all he had experienced in the weeks that they were trapped in the Python Dimension, it was a wonder he was anywhere near sane.  
  
As Scott slept, he began to see strange images in his mind. They were quite bizarre, showing people in shops, offices, restaurants, and other situations and locales, discussing and haggling over things like cheese, string, parrots, the selections on the lunch menu, chocolate, and even the price of an argument. He also heard strange songs, such as the lumberjack singing about how he loved his life, and the Australians singing about philosophy and beer. As he slipped deeper into his dream, he could hear bits and pieces of their conversations in his mind.  
  
"Is this the right room for an argument?" a man asked.  
  
"Spam, spam, spam, spam!" sang a pack of Vikings.  
  
"Albatross!" cried a man carrying a vendor's box around his neck with a dead bird in it.  
  
"We done the passion fruit!" protested several soldiers.  
  
"Right, how to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana!" shouted their drill sergeant back at them.  
  
"I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok!" sang a man in a flannel shirt and suspenders.  
  
"Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable!" sang the Australians.  
  
"There's another dead bishop on the landing!" a housewife complained.  
  
"Do you have Grate Expectations by Charles Dikkens?" asked a man to a bookstore clerk.  
  
Scott realized that he was seeing residual images from the Python Dimension. Some how, it still had a hold on his mind! The voices began to flow faster and faster, growing more hectic and more jumbled together, turning into one chaotic mass of sound and noise.  
  
"It's Simpson's Emperor Stringettes!"  
  
"Number four, Crunchy Frog!  
  
"Is your wife a goer, eh?"  
  
"Not much call for cheddar? It's only the most popular cheese in the world!"  
  
TitanTheNoveltyNuclearMissileAnthraxRippleHeyVanceNeverBeRudeToAnArabBloodyV ikingsSpamSpamSpamSpamThisParrotIsNoMoreSitOnMyFaceIWearHighHeelsSuspendersA ndABraTheOneInTheBracesHeDoneItI'mNotTheMessaiahOhBloodyHellTatooedOnTheBack OfTheNeckIt'sAnOcarinaSirIt'sJustThatThereAreTwentyEightOfThemWhichBushIsHeB ehindNowNiI'dLikeToComplainAboutThisParrotWhatCatDetectorVanI'mTheUrbanSpace manNotTheDativeNotTheDativeWhenYouBiteIntoItStainlessSteelBoltsSpringOutAndP lungeStraightThroughBothCheeksThisParrotWouldn'tVoomIfYouPutFourMillionVolts ThroughItTheExpurgatedVersionMyNipplesExplodeWithDelightSocratesHimselfWasPe rmanentlyPissedWeThinkThatYourAmericanBeerIsLikeMakingLoveInACanoeNiI'mSorry MyWalkHasBecomeRatherSillyLatelyIfWeTookTheBonesOutItWouldn'tBeCrunchyICould BeArguingOnMySpareTimeOrEvenFarlesWickensWithFourM'sAndASilentQDon'tTalkToTh eAudienceNudgeNudgeWinkWinkSayNoMoreYouCan'tReadYouHaveBeautifulThighsWhatIn God'sNameInspiredYouToPaintThisWithThreeChristsInItIJustPaidNoYouDidn'tShutU pIt'sBloodySeaBirdFlavorRightMoanMoanMoanNiThat'sAnOffensiveWeaponThatIsTheL oonyDetectorVanYouMeanCockroachClusterThisIsAnExParrotParrotParrotParrot!  
  
With the word 'Parrot' echoing over and over in his mind, Scott wrapped his arms around his head and screamed in mortal terror as the swirling images and sounds closed in on him. Suddenly, he woke up, gasping for breath and dripping wet in sweat.  
  
As Scott slowly regained consciousness, he realized that he was back at the Institute, in the locker room that was adjacent to the Danger Room. He groaned as he rubbed his head, trying to dislodge all the horrible scenes from his mind.  
  
"Scott, are you all right?"  
  
Scott looked at where the voice had come from and saw Kurt standing over him. His memories of reemerging in Magneto's tower and seeing his fellow X- Men alive and in one piece were gone from his mind, driven out by the horrible stream of gibberish still bubbling in his head.  
  
"Kurt! You're alive!" Scott said, clutching his friend tightly as if Kurt were an anchor of sanity.  
  
"Of course I'm alive!" Kurt said, pushing Scott away slightly. "Why wouldn't I be?"  
  
Scott looked at him, confused. "But you were cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril!" he said. "I saw you!"  
  
"Gorge of Eternal Peril?" Kurt asked. "Where's that?"  
  
"In the Python Dimension! Don't you remember any of it?" Scott asked.  
  
"Python Dimension?" Kurt asked, starting to unzip his uniform. "What are you talking about? We just got back from the mission! What's wrong with you?"  
  
"I don't know," Scott said, not sure how he would be able to explain everything he had been through. He supposed whatever had happened was only affecting his mind, and decided to find out what all he was missing. "Look, how did the mission go, anyway?" he asked, following Kurt's lead and pulling down the zipper on the back of his own suit.  
  
"Oh, same old, same old," Kurt said. "Once again, the world is safe for mutants thanks to us," He pulled his uniform off, revealing a sequined corset, garter belt, panties, and nylon stockings underneath.  
  
Scott pulled off his own uniform top. "Glad to. Kurt!" Scott shouted, noticing his friend's attire. "What are you doing wearing that?" he asked.  
  
"What?" Kurt asked nonchalantly.  
  
"THAT!" Scott said, pointing at Kurt madly, as if he had seen a ghost. "Where are your normal clothes?!"  
  
"What, this? I've always worn this. These are my normal clothes," Kurt said, as if he had been born wearing the strange getup.  
  
"But. but you look ridiculous!" Scott protested,  
  
"Look who's talking, fearless leader!" Kurt said with a laugh. "You took the red one, remember?" He pointed at Scott's reflection in one of the locker room's mirrors.  
  
Scott caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and went slack-jawed. He was wearing a similar ensemble beneath his uniform, except that his corset, garter, and panties were red as opposed to Kurt's black sequin-lined ones.  
  
"What. what am I." Scott babbled inanely. Kurt looked at him and shook his head. Fearless leader has clearly flipped his visor, he thought.  
  
"Come on, Scott, that amnesia routine might still work on Jean, but I'm not falling for it again," Kurt said, smoothing out a wrinkle in one of his stockings. "I'll see you later, hopefully when you've got your head on straight,"  
  
Kurt walked over to his locker, opened it, and pulled out a leather miniskirt and a pair of heels. He wrapped the skirt around his waist and adjusted it so it hung just over his knees, slid the heels onto his feet and stood up, the heels making him taller than Scott was. Kurt walked out of the changing room with his tail swishing under his skirt, planning on finding Amanda and convincing her to take a new set of vows, preferably ones that ended in 'I do'.  
  
X  
  
Scott was left alone in the changing room, still gawking at Kurt's appearance, not to mention the underclothes that were now on his own body. He ran a hand across the corset and cringed at how soft and utterly feminine it felt.  
  
"This can't be happening!" he said, his mind still in denial of what it was seeing. "I can't be, this isn't."  
  
Logan walked by as Scott continued to look in the mirror. "Hey, Scott," he said. "Glad to see you're up and about. Magneto's secret weapon looked like it hit you pretty hard,"  
  
Scott watched Logan pull off his uniform. Like Kurt, Logan was dressed in the same costume underneath, only his was all black leather. Logan patted Scott on the shoulder, then put on his own skirt and heels and walked out of the changing room, gliding effortlessly across the floor in his heels.  
  
I did not just see that, Scott took another look at his reflection. I've got to still be dreaming, or something. There's no way that the Grail could have made this happen, could it?  
  
X  
  
"Actually, Scott, the Grail did make this happen," came a voice. Scott nearly jumped through the ceiling in surprise, and then turned around to see Xavier, sitting in his wheelchair. Xavier had clearly read his mind.  
  
"Professor! You know I hate it when you do that" Scott shouted, protesting at the mental invasion. Then he saw Xavier wearing a corset of his own in the framed apparatus "Not you too!" he said, convinced that the whole universe was conspiring to drive him insane.  
  
"I did not need to read your mind to tell what you were thinking, Scott," Xavier said. "But it's not all bad. This is the only thing that seems to have changed,"  
  
"No! I don't believe this!" Scott said, rushing to his locker, certain that the normal clothes that he had had on earlier would be there.  
  
A quick check of his locker revealed not the clothes he had remembered wearing earlier that day, but extra sets of garters and corsets. All of his jeans, sweaters, etc. had totally vanished, as if they had never existed.  
  
"I don't understand!" Scott said despairingly. "I thought my wish was perfect. What went wrong?"  
  
"Who knows?" Xavier said. "In such a chaotic dimension, there must be an infinite improbability that some part of your wish must have gotten twisted around. An inflection, an accent, anything could have done it,"  
  
"Funny, I don't remember wishing to be dressed like a Victoria's Secret model," Scott said, feeling his masculinity slipping farther and farther away.  
  
"Scott, you should learn to be more appreciative of the way things are," Xavier said. "After all, it's not like you have a tail like Kurt's. Be thankful that your wish only caused this one slight change," he said, and wheeled out of the locker room, leaving Scott by himself.  
  
X  
  
Glumly, Scott sat down on one of the benches and tried to figure out what had gone wrong when he made his wish.  
  
"I said 'I wish we could have stopped Magneto from sending us to this horrible dimension'," Scott said, replaying the events that had happened when he had drunk from the Grail. Then he realized his gaffe.  
  
He had placed a slightly extra emphasis on 'this' when he referred to the dimension, and at the same time, he was thinking that the Python Dimension was the absolute worst place he could wind up in. But he had also been thinking of an old comedy skit he had seen on TV once, about a pair of judges who liked to wear lingerie under their robes. The image had repulsed him, and had been an utter affront to his masculine ego. He remembered thinking at the time that he would rather be dead than seen wearing something like that.  
  
"And since I didn't want to be dead when I made the wish. oh no!" Scott said, fully realizing how grave a mistake he had made. He also realized that there was no way he could get back to the Python Dimension and make another wish. He was stuck in this changed dimension for good. Doomed to walk around forever like an extra in the Rocky Horror Picture Show!  
  
Scott took one last look at himself in the mirror, convinced that his life was over. But this time, he did not have the same reaction of horror to what he was seeing.  
  
This time, as Scott looked at himself in the mirror, he began to notice certain things, things that he had never noticed or even thought about before. Things like how the stockings, which were actually now starting to feel comfortable to him, brought out the curves of his calves and thighs. How the corset he was wearing enhanced his chest, making his upper body look stronger and broader. And besides, he thought, the red would go so well with his sunglasses! He took one last look and accepted the inevitability of his new reality.  
  
"Oh, it's close enough," he muttered, chucked his uniform in his locker, put on his own skirt and high heels, and walked out of the changing room, his skirt swishing around his legs and his heels clicking on the steel floor as he went.  
  
XXX  
  
Author's note: And so the insanity ends. About the ending, no, Scott has not wound up in the Rocky Horror dimension (sadly). The last scene is a parody of a skit from Monty Python at the Hollywood Bowl. Scott's last line is a reference to one of the Simpsons Halloween episodes where Homer goes time-hopping with the aid of a toaster and alters the present over and over again. The overwhelming jumble of images is from various Python films, Flying Circus episodes, etc.  
  
Hope everybody has had as much fun reading this as I have writing it. I am leaving town for the rest of the summer in about 2 weeks so I will not be able to do much more writing for a while. If I can make the time, I'll try to do some more of How The X-Men Saved Christmas before I leave, but you probably shouldn't expect too many more updates from me until August. 


End file.
